Just a Smile
by Atropine
Summary: Kyou gets caught out in a downpour one evening miles from Shigure's house, but he's not the only one wandering the woods! Ch.10 Shigure goes missing and Tohru has a secret. Future KyouHaru pairing, please read and review.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:** Not mine. In any way. NONE OF THEM. PLEASE DON'T SUE ME I DON'T HAVE A JOB ANYMORE. TT

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Kyou Sohma sat alone in the hollow of a tree trunk, arms wrapped loosely around his knees. His face was hidden by lengthy orange hair that clung to the back of his neck, and not one muscle moved. Kyou Sohma, cursed by the vengeful spirit of the cat from the old Chinese zodiac fable, had gotten himself caught in quite a heavy rainfall.

The heavier the rain became, the farther his head seemed to fall forward until it finally bumped into his knees. He let out a faint groan, but remained quite immobile.

_'It figures,' _he thought to himself, the very thought sluggish. The one day he had managed to finish his homework early enough to have time to go out prowling before dinner, and he gets caught in this sudden downpour miles away from Shigure's house. _'Hilly miles, too' _he grumbled inwardly, lacking the energy to vocalize anything even vaguely resembling words.

The best he had been able to do was to find an especially large tree among the hundreds that grew on this Sohma estate, which hadn't been hard. Unfortunately he had been there for a good twenty minutes now, and each second that ticked away sapped at his already waning strength.

Somewhere in the back of his fuzzy mind, he realized that he had to get back for dinner before Tohru started worrying herself to death. A brief image of her wringing the life out of a dishtowel while she tried to finish cooking flashed before his eyes before sleep overtook him - then he knew no more.

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_Back at the house…_

"Tohru-kun…we're going to run out of dishtowels soon if you keep doing that…"

Tohru looked up in surprise at Shigure, then back down to her hands, which had been doing their very best to strangle her trusty towel. "Ahh! I'm sorry, Shigure-san! You too, towel-san, I'm so sorry!"

"It's nothing, Tohru," Shigure said with his usual smile. "Oh right, I came here to ask you something of terribly great importance."

"Eh?" Tohru's eyes widened. "Um, whatever it is, I'll answer to the best of my ability!"

"Ah, I knew I could count on you! That's why you're my little housewife, right Tohru?" Shigure said, sneaking an arm around the girl's shoulders.

"Um…" she quickly grew flustered. "Was that…your question, Shigure-san?"

"Ha ha! Always the same Tohru," Shigure said, patting her on the shoulder. His face suddenly turned serious. "But no, that wasn't what I wanted to ask. No, my highly important question, the one that only you can answer is…"

Tohru waited with bated breath, intent on catching every word of such a majorquestion. "Y-yes?"

"When's dinner? I'm starving."

Tohru froze at the anticlimactic query, blinking a few times. "Eh? Oh, um…well, that's just it, actually…" she trailed off, turning her gaze to the window.

"Huh?" Shigure followed her line of vision. Rain shrouded their view of the outside world in a watery veil, making even the closest trees and bushes appear to be shapeless blobs of nothing. Shigure blinked once, twice; then comprehension bloomed over his features. "Ah! Kyou-kun's gone out, hasn't he? Honestly, he should really learn to check the weather reports before going on an outing. I wouldn't be surprised if he_is_ stuck out in that mess."

Tohru bit her lip. "I hope he's alright out there…Shigure-san, he's been gone for a long time now. What if he…what if he can't get back somehow?" Visions of Kyou's behavior on previous rainy days sprang into Tohru's mind - his total lack of energy, even to get angry at Yuki, his turning in early without eating and being, for all intents and purposes, dead to the world.

"Don't worry your pretty little head about him, Tohru," Shigure said reassuringly. "He'll be alright; he's probably holed up in some cave right now - maybe one of his bear friends from the mountains has invited him in."

"Do you really think so?" Tohru asked, turning around and looking at Shigure with a delighted smile. "That would be nice; it must have been a long time since they last saw each other, after all."

"Indeed," Shigure said, struggling to smother his laughter. "Anyway, when he does make it back, he'll probably be too tired to eat. If he gets here fast enough we'll make him some nice snacks with the leftovers, right?" _'"We" meaning "you," of course,' _he thought to himself, seeing as for the safety of all it was generally agreed that Shigure stay out of the kitchen.

"Right!" Tohru agreed, busying herself once again with her smile restored. "Dinner will be out in just a few more minutes, so please forgive the delay!"

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"Hm…"

Hatsuharu Sohma found himself in a mysterious situation indeed. The bi-colored hair of great infamy was currently plastered wetly to his face, obscuring his vision. He wasn't exactly sure why Lady Fate had led him so far astray of his destination, but who was he to question such a mysterious power?

He scratched at a lock of hair that was particularly bothersome, being stuck in his left eye and whatnot. Finally he brushed the wet hair off of his typically mellow face and took in his surroundings.

…No matter how many times he visited, the forest surrounding Sensei's house all looked the same to him. Not one to be deterred by anything as abstract as direction, Haru pushed onward, paying no mind to the cold rivulets of water running down his face and neck.

After about ten minutes, he paused. Up ahead lay a giant tree with thickly growing foliage, but that wasn't what had caught his attention. A few feet above the ground, he could make out something through the curtain of rain - something rather orange.

He made his way over at an easy pace until he stood before the tree. It was just as he had expected - the orange thing was actually one Kyou Sohma's head, slumped forward quite a ways and attached to an equally slumping body.

It wasn't difficult to figure out this situation, nor what had to be done to remedy it. _'At least he wasn't _in_ the tree,' _he thought to himself as he took hold of Kyou's limp arm and heaved.

The exhausted cat's eyes opened in shock as he was lifted to his feet and felt his arm being slung around strong shoulders. The brief spurt of energy subsequently brought on was short-lived, however, and his red eyes hazed over; but it had been enough for him to recognize his rescuer. "Haru…what are you…?"

"Hey," the younger boy said firmly. "Can you point us in the right direction before you conk out?"

Kyou's eyes struggled to form a glare, but he quickly felt the waste of energy and instead turned his head to take in the terrain. He slowly lifted a finger at the small path to their right; "That…will get us back home…" And with that, Kyo's head dropped forward.

Haru gave a small smile. "Home, is it?"

"Nn…" Kyo was fading fast. "Just don't get us lost, damn it."

"How mean."

They plodded along the footpath, barely visible in the downpour and difficult to walk for all the mud. But Haru kept them going at a steady pace, never stopping; he half dragged Kyou along, though the stubborn boy insisted on using his own two feet to make progress. Haru kept a thread of extremely random conversation going to keep the orange-haired boy awake, though he really only remained so out of irritation at the cow's questions.

"Do you have a camera?" Haru came to ask.

"I don't have anything on me, you idiot…" Kyou ground out tiredly.

"Well you've got your clothes on you. But I meant if you just had one at all."

"…No."

"Oh. That's too bad." He fell silent.

Kyou allowed Haru to lead him a bit further before his curiosity got the best of him. "…Why?"

"Hn? Why what? And is this the right way?"

"No go left…at the bush up there…and why is not having a camera too bad, you moron?"

"Oh. Well, 'cause I like pictures. Don't you, Kyou?"

"No, I don't!" Kyou started yelling, but quickly running out of steam and slumping down further. "Ahh, what use are pictures anyway…"

"They're like memories though, don't you think? Something you can always go back to and remember."

"Keh. I don't need pictures to remember any of it."

"Any of what?" Haru was asking more for the sake of keeping Kyou talking rather than any real interest, and his attention remained focused on the path ahead of them.

"Any of it…all of it…I couldn't forget if I tried."

Haru glanced down at Kyou's face, but it was hidden by wet orange hair. Somehow he thought the older boy had fallen asleep on his feet and was sleep-talking, or perhaps delirious from the long walk in the rain. Either way, the subject of their conversation had taken a decidedly different turn. "Any of _them_?" he clarified for Kyou, watching for some kind of reaction.

"…Yeah." The boy's head refused to come up, and finally he stopped moving altogether. "Haru."

"Hm?" Haru stopped pulling him along, taking a moment to glance around their surroundings. He was surprised to find that Shigure's house was just around the next bend in the path and down the hill; he could see the roof from where they stood.

"I don't…want any pictures."

Haru blinked down at the older boy leaning against him for support curiously. "You don't have to have any, Kyou," he said.

Kyou shook his head. "I mean…what's the use of a picture? It's just a face, frozen in one moment…they aren't…frozen. That's not how I…want to remember them. Stuck with some phony smile…not alive. I see them the way I want to…in my own mind."

Haru didn't say anything for a moment. Rainwater ran unchecked down his face, and he suddenly realized something - he was very cold. "Come on," he said to Kyou, hauling him forward a few feet before the other boy could protest.

They made their way in silence, Kyou's head hanging low and Haru watching the path in front of them; it broadened out as it neared the house, but it took a winding course down the hill. When they were about halfway down, he finally broke the silence. "You could be right, Kyou; pictures aren't real. But I still like them anyway."

"Why? What's the point?" Kyou mumbled. A flash of lightening illuminated the world for a split second, followed closely by the thunderclap.

"Why does it have to have a point? Some things are fun just because they _don't_ have a point, don't you think?"

"Some of us don't have time to waste on things like that," Kyou said quietly.

Haru looked over at Kyou in mild surprise. "What do you mean?" Kyou didn't elaborate, and was saved from more questions by a yell. "Kyou-kun!"

The boys looked up to see Tohru running over from the house, her face a mask of worry.

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**Author's Note: **Well...so maybe not a lot has happened yet, ne? But hey it's just a first chapter. By the way, this fic is a request by my dear Cheri-sama, though I've been intrigued by the Kyou/Haru idea for a little while now myself. This is my first fic of this sort (and this ship) and I have no idea where it's going to end up at the moment, except for the fact that we'll get to see some boy fluff in the future. Pyon!

Please let me know what you think. Kyou-kun's rather touchy about photos, inne? Hmm, I wonder why...


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer:** Look, a second disclaimer on the same story! Maybe this will make up for the ones I forgot to put on my others. --; I don't own any part of the Fruits Basket universe, which is probably a good thing in the long run, for the jyuunishi's sakes.

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Yuki and Shigure had been finishing up their dinners - _"Another wonderful meal, Tohru-kuuun!" _- while Tohru slowly worked her way through her own, eyes cast over at Kyou's empty spot at the table. The storm hadn't been getting much worse, but it hadn't lightened up at all either, and she was definitely worried now. Shigure had told her repeatedly not to worry, that Kyou was probably hidden from the worst of the rain; Yuki, naturally apathetic to the cat's struggles, only told her not to waste her energy on that dumb cat.

Trying not to let her worries get the best of her, Tohru gathered up her dishes and made her way into the kitchen to start cleaning up. As she passed by a window, lightening flashed and the outside was made clearer for just a moment - but it was long enough for her to see spots of white and orange making their way down the back hill's path out of the woods. Her eyes widened, and she barely remembered to put her dishes down first before running out to meet them, whipping an umbrella open as she moved.

"Kyou-kun!" she cried out into the roar of the falling rain; both he and Hatsuharu looked up and watched her approach. "Hatsuharu-san! A-are you both alright? You're not hurt are you, Kyou-kun?"

"I'm fine," Kyou answered somewhat shortly, but without any real malice. "I just…need sleep…."

"Ah! Of course, you've been out in this heavy rain for so long, and it makes you so tired even when it's lighter, and who _knows_ how long you were stuck with Bear-san in his cave…"

"…With...wait, what?" But for Kyou's effort atgetting clarification fromthe girl, his question was all but unheardthrough her worried rambling.

"I'll put him to bed," Haru offered, lurching forward with Kyou still in his grasp. "Come on, Kyou, I'll go tuck you in."

"I don't need you to put me to bed like I'm some brat, Haru!" Kyou protested as he was led into the house followed by Tohru, who was sporting a relieved smile.

They paused in the entrance area, sitting down to take of their shoes. "I'll go get some towels, please wait here you two!" Tohru said, hurrying off to the linen closet. The boys sat on the floor, Kyou slumped forward, and both dripping quite excessively from just about everywhere.

Tohru returned shortly carrying several fluffy white towels. "Do you need any help drying off, Kyou-kun?" she asked innocently, obviously worried about his heavy exhaustion.

The cat in question began to blush and quickly worked on drying his dripping hair with one of the towels. "No, I don't need any help…" he mumbled.

"Don't worry about him, Honda-san," Haru said after wringing out his own hair and wiping at his face. "If he gets too tired, I can finish drying him off."

"Really, Hatsuharu-san?" Tohru beamed at him. "Thank you so much!"

"…Hey…I'm right here, you know…" Kyou tried to remind the other two.

"Oh, that's right!" Tohru said, apparently not hearing him. "I'd better go get you something hot to drink, and some fresh clothes for you both, and maybe a hot water bottle for you, Kyou-kun…" she began walking up the stairs, still thinking aloud.

Kyou sighed. He was really, really…really tired. All he wanted to do was crawl onto his bed and pass out for about three days.

"Ah, I see our stray cat made it back in one piece," Shigure's voice came from above him. "Haa-kun, did you bring him back for us?"

"Yeah," Haru replied, trying to wring some of the water out of his clothes.

"Was he stuck up a tree?"

"Shut up, Shigure!" Kyou groused.

"Well, he wasn't _in_ the tree." Haru brushed the hair out of his eyes, sending a fine sprinkle over the floor.

"Ha ha! So it was a tree after all, and not your bear's cave, huh Kyou-kun?" Shigure grinned at the grumpy youth with the towel stuck to his head.

"Bear's what?…Is that what she was talking about? How many times do I have to tell you, I never fought bears!" He stood up, intent on stalking upstairs to his room, but was slightly deterred by the fact that the world gave a sudden lurch and his face rushed to meet the floor. _'The ground sure is moving fast,' _he thought; then suddenly it stopped - or rather, _he_ had stopped.

"Impressive, Haa-kun!" Shigure clapped as Haru clung to Kyou's arm and prevented him from an abrupt meeting between his face and the hard floor. "That makes it twice now you've saved our Kyou-kun!"

Kyou gritted his teeth and clenched his fists. Before Haru could make any sort of comment, he had been pushed away by the hot-headed boy whothen quickly bolted up the stairs.

"You sure are good at making people mad at you, Sensei," Haru said blandly to the dark-haired man, who chortled.

"Only because they're so fun to bait," he said with a wave of his hand. A loud thump sounded from upstairs, and the two still in the entrance hall looked up the stairs blankly. Seconds later, a flustered looking Tohru came rushing down the stairs and almost ran into the unmovable Haru.

"Ah! I'm sorry Hatsuharu-san," she quickly apologized.

"It's nothing," he said. "What happened?"

"Ah! Um! I-it's nothing, really!" she cried. "K-Kyou-kun's just fine, uh…he has a man's dignity and pride, after all, so, um…there's no reason to worry!"

Shigure and Haru blinked at the girl in front of them. _'What…is she talking about?' _The question rang through both of their minds. "Um…Tohru-kun?" Shigure attempted to get her attention.

"Ah! I forgot to make the tea! I have to do it before either of you catch cold, oh, that would be terrible!" And with that, she rushed into the kitchen.

Shigure stared after her bemusedly for a moment before heaving a theatric sigh of woe. "Haa-kun, sometimes I just don't understand that precious flower of ours! How sad…"

"Quit talking about her like that, you pervert!" Yuki yelled from the other room. Haru turned to face the entrance to that room, but then paused.

"I appreciate your show of restraint in flooding my house, Haru," Shigure said, peering shrewdly at the little lost cow."But as it seems Tohru-kun won't be back for a little bit with your dry clothes I suppose you'll just have to make do naked."

"Hn. If you insist," Haru replied, peeling off his shirt.

Shigure threw his hands over his eyes and wailed. "Haa-kun, you are so indecent! But honestly, learn to tell jokes for what they are…" he trailed off and handed Haru another towel. "Just go change into the spare pants Kyou-kun left in the bathroom before you go wandering around the house, would you?"

Haru nodded, and Shigure went back into the living room to pretend to be offended by Yuki's outburst. The damp boy made his way to the bathroom on the ground floor and rummaged around until he found the fabled pants - simple grey sweatpants that Kyou often trained in, thankfully freshly laundered. Haru quickly exchanged his wet attire for the warm, dry pants, then meandered back out of the bathroom.

He could hear Yuki's soft voice up ahead, followed by Shigure's raucous laughter; but instead of joining the two of them in the living room, he headed up the stairs quietly.

It was dark up on the second floor; none of the lights were on, and the heavy night gloom seeped in through the windows. Haru made his way down the hallway and came to a stop at the only room that had any light shining out of it - Kyou's room.

The door was half open, and Haru slide it the rest of the way without warning. Kyou was sitting on the floor, his back to the door; he had already changed into dry clothes and his hair was unusually ruffled. The light came from a small lamp that sat on his dresser, and in the faint glow Haru could see the cat's ears were quite red. From all appearances, Kyou seemed to be quite oblivious to his visitor.

"Did Honda-san have to help you change after all?" Haru asked.

Kyou jumped about a mile into the air. "AHHH! Haru! Don't sneak up on people like that, you idiot!"

"I opened the door as loudly as I could. I thought you would have noticed. So she did have to help you then?"

"NO SHE DIDN'T HAVE TO HELP ME!"

"Oh. Sorry. I thought it would have explained why she was talking about a man's dignity downstairs, and why you're blushing."

Kyou flushed an even deeper red at that, sitting down again and biting back a growl. "She - she just walked in at a bad time…"

"It's not like she hasn't seen you naked before," Haru said, coming fully into the room and sliding the door shut behind him.

Kyou spluttered. "Wha--! What's that supposed to mean?"

"You _have_ transformed in front of her several times…why, what'd you think I was getting at?"

"Urk - nothing," Kyou brought his hands to his face and rubbed for all he was worth. He was too tired to deal with this right now, and told Haru as much.

"So go to sleep," was the reply.

"…How am I supposed to sleep with you wandering around in my room all night?" Kyou glared up at the other boy, who was indeed making his way around the rather bare room instead of making his way out of it.

"I'm not going to be here all night - unless you want me to be, Kyou. I wouldn't mind spending the night." Haru replied, pulling open a dresser drawer.

"Of course I don't - hey! What do you think you're doing, you damn brat?" Kyou heaved himself up and stalked over to the dresser. "Don't just go through other people's stuff!"

Undeterred, Haru felt around the inside of the drawer. "It's a little hard to see anything with just that lamp on."

"You shouldn't be seeing anything at ALL!" Kyou yelled. He quickly deflated, sinking to the floor. "Haru, I don't have the energy for you anymore."

"I guess that means you don't have the energy to stop me from looking then, either," Haru said, moving on to another drawer.

Gloom settled over Kyou as he rested against the dresser. "You'd better be ready when the rain stops, bastard…what the hell are you looking for anyway?"

"Pictures."

Kyou's eyes popped open, but he didn't look up. "You…you're still on about those dumb things?"

Haru closed that drawer and went on to yet another. "Yeah."

Suddenly Kyou shoved himself up and clamped a hand over Haru's wrist, halting the boy's explorations. Haru found himself being dragged bodily to the door and quickly dug in his heels. Kyou shot a fiery glare back at the resistance and threw open the sliding door, pointing fiercely out of it. "Out. Now."

Haru's eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly; he made no move towards the gaping doorway. "Why do you hate pictures so much, Kyou?"

"That's not really any of your business, is it!" Kyou yelled.

"It's a simple question," Haru said, not taking his eyes off of the irate cat.

"And I gave you a simple answer, now get out!" Kyou made to shove the other boy out by force if he refused to go of his own will, but Haru was surprisingly rock-like in his resistance. "Damn it, go away!"

"Why won't you just tell me?" said the rock, pushing back harder.

"Why do you care so goddamn much!" Kyou growled out.

Haru's eyes were shadowed in that dim light by long hair; he was silent for a moment. When he spoke again, his voice sounded slightly different, harsher. "It…_bothers_ me. I don't get it, you don't make sense, and you're pissing me off."

Kyou looked confused for a second before comprehension dawned on his face. "Don't you go turning Black in my room, you idiot! And what do you mean, _I _don't make sense? Who are you to talk?"

Haru raised his face; sure enough, that rude smirk clouded his face and the trademark malice of Black Haru had entered his usually tranquil eyes. He gave a great shove and Kyou fell backwards, landing hard and knocking the wind out of his lungs.

"Who do you think _you're_ talking to, you stupid cat? If this is the way you want it, then come on and fight me, you pansy!"

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**Author's Note:** Uh oh, Black Haru-san...poor Kyou-kun. What is he going to do stuckall alone in a dark room with Black Haru? Oh dear, the indecision.

Thanks for the reviews for the last chapter! There's still more of this story to come, don't worry. Our boys haven't even done anything yet, after all.


	3. Chapter 3

Once again, Black Haru had descended. And once again, Kyou had been the one to summon him from the depths of Haru's mind. _'Damn it all to hell,' _Kyou thought, still on the floor and struggling to get his air back. _'I didn't have the energy to deal with _White_ Haru, what the hell am I gonna do with the _Black_ one!'_

"What's the matter, kitty-cat? Too scared to move? I guess you really are a pussy after all," Haru growled, sounding disturbingly excited.

"Tch," Kyou grunted, heaving himself up to his feet. "Like I haven't heard that one a million times already, you unoriginal bastard," he ground out, voice shaky from the blow to the diaphragm.

"Yeah, well now you're hearing it from me! No wonder you're not risking a fight with me!" Haru laughed darkly.

"…What the hell does that mean, you stupid cow! Every word out of your mouth is more confusing and meaningless than the last!"

Haru narrowed his dark eyes dangerously, baring his teeth in a deranged smile. "Oh? Is that right? Well why don't you try and shut me up then? Or are you too tired from a little drizzle, youstupid weak animal!"

Kyou's eyes flashed even through the haze of exhaustion; a split second later found his fist connecting solidly with - Haru's open palm. Surprise bloomed on Kyou's face at the block; apparently he really _was_ too tired to deal with Haru tonight, even spurred on by rage.

"Heh," Haru smirked, leaning tauntingly in to Kyou's face. "Too weak." Kyou's eyes followed Haru's movements as best he could, unable to block them; the crazed cow's arm blurred as it was brought backward to deliver a blow to Kyou's stomach when suddenly--

"I'm so sorry it took so long to make you your tea! Shigure-san was just saying something about--ahh!" Tohru's voice ended in a startled gasp, and many things happened at once.

The well-intended girl had slid the door to Kyou's room open with a small trayof two full tea cups cradled in one arm and walked forward into the room - right into Haru's still shirtless back. Her eyes widened as she overcorrected the now unbalanced tray of steaming hot tea, desperate to keep any of it from meeting Haru's exposed skin.

The bump, while on the slight side, was utterly unexpected. It was all that was necessary for Haru to be thrown off balance, and he fell forward - right onto Kyou. Mouths that had only seconds before been inches apart and spewing curses at each other were suddenly pressed together in a chaste kiss. Neither boy knew quite what to do as they fell as though in slow motion; their wide eyes just stared into each other and they remained frozen together, neither pulling back nor moving forward.

With a heavy _thump_ they hit the floor and slipped apart, that tiny and mysterious moment ended. Black eyes remained locked on red for a second longer until suddenly Kyou slammed his eyes shut. He swiped out his arm to shove Haru off of him, and though the move lacked any real strength, the other boy was pushed to the side and landed squarely on his rear with a tiny grunt.

By this time Tohru had regained control of the tea tray, thankfully without any casualties. She let out a sigh of relief and surveyed the scene before her. "Ah! U-um, Hatsuharu-san! Kyou-kun! I'm so sorry, I didn't think there would be anyone right in front of the door! You're not hurt, are you?"

Kyou gritted his teeth and made a strangled noise in the back of his throat. "I-I'M FINE!" he yelled, scrambling back from Haru and getting to his feet. Haru said nothing and remained on the floor.

"Eh?" Tohru smiled a bit uncertainly at the outburst. "Um…well, I-I've got your tea right here, and none of it spilled. Um…I could just leave it here for you two if I interrupted something…" she trailed off.

Kyou's eyes flashed and he opened his mouth to scream out exactly why that would not be necessary when suddenly Haru got to his feet. "No need for that, Honda-san," he said in his usual placid tone. "I need to be getting back home now anyway before that vein in Hatori's forehead makes an appearance."

_'He turned back to White Haru just like that? When did that happen?' _Kyou wondered to himself with a frown.

Tohru smiled gently at Haru and held up her tray. "Won't you at least have some tea before you leave, Hatsuharu-san? You need to warm up before you catch cold…and you're not even wearing a shirt!"

This observation drew Kyou's attention to Haru's attire. "OI! What do you think you're doing wearing my pants?"

Haru half glanced in Kyou's direction, not making eye contact. "I found them in the bathroom downstairs. Sensei wouldn't let me come up here without changing."

"Keh! He shouldn't have let you come up here at all! Damn Shigure…well you'd better give them back right now, you dumb brat! I train in those!" Kyou fairly yelled, holding his hand out as if to receive them.

Haru turned fully to face Kyou. "You want them right now?" he asked carefully.

Kyou froze for a second, then nearly choked and flushed a deep red. "NO! Are you even wearing--no, I don't even want to know…"

Tohru was watching the exchange and growing more perplexed by the minute. "Um…Kyou-kun?"

"WHAT?"

"Um! I-it's nothing…" she moved over to Kyou's dresser and put her tea tray down before she really did end up dropping it.

Kyou slapped his hand to his forehead in frustration. "That's not…" _'Damn it, she got the wrong idea again,_' he mentally kicked himself since he was too tired to do it physically.

"So which is it, Kyou? You want them back or not?" Haru's voice broke through his thoughts.

"BURN THEM."

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Downstairs in the living room, Shigure and Yuki were blinking up at the ceiling.

"Things sure got noisier up there…" Yuki said.

"Ah, but they sound like they're having fun," Shigure replied, opening his ever-present fan with a flourish.

A loud thump resounded from upstairs, followed by a shout. Yuki just stared. "What on earth makes you say that?"

Another thump, then a clatter and more shouting. "Honestly, Yuki-kun, you are simply _wasting_ this precious time of yours."

"And what's that supposed to mean?"

They could hear Tohru's higher voice added to the din, most likely trying to play peacekeeper. "The rashness of youth! Ahh, really, there was nothing your Uncle Shigure enjoyed more as a strapping young man than a loud and steady romp with a--mmph!"

The cushion thrown at Shigure's face fell to the floor slowly. "I don't want to know _what_ you did as a younger and impossibly _less_ responsible pervert. And what's this 'Uncle' stuff about?"

"Yuki-kun, you're so cold," Shigure wailed dramatically.

A fainter thump and clang from upstairs; "…Idiot."

------

"Um…well, Hatsuharu-san…" Tohru ventured to cut through the sudden tension she felt in the air. The boy in question turned his head to look at her. "Uh…Shigure-san told me tell you that he's already called Hatori-san, and that he's on his way over to pick you up."

"Oh. Okay." Without another word, Haru padded over to the dresser, carefully selected a cup of tea, then quickly downed it in one gulp.

"Ah!" Tohru's eyes bugged out in panic. "Um, H-Hatsuharu-san, that's still hot--!"

Haru replaced the now empty cup and stood still for a minute. "…Ow."

Tohru stood frozen and speechless from horror while Haru let out a faint cough; luckily Kyou had voice enough for all three of them. "'OW'? WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING, YOU IDIOT?"

"Sorry to worry you."

"WHO'D BE DUMB ENOUGH TO WORRY ABOUT A DUMBASS LIKE YOU?"

"Ah…Kyou-kun…please don't push yourself in your condition!" Tohru interjected.

"I DON'T HAVE A CONDITION!"

"Y-yes! I-I know, but um…I mean, you've had a hard day, and you really should rest before you c-come down with a fever…" she trailed off.

Kyou's furrowed brow eased up and he fell silent.

"Kyou," Haru said, heading for the door, "don't take it out on Honda-san."

The fiery-tempered boy ground his teeth in anger, glaring full-on at Haru, but instead of another bout of loud cursing opted for an all-purpose "Keh!" before turning away.

"Honda-san, thank you for the tea," Haru added to Tohru before he passed through the door, leaving it open behind him. His steady steps faded into the distance as the silence stretched on between the two left in the room.

"Um…you're welcome…!" Tohru called out suddenly.

Kyou snorted. "A little late for that, don't you think?" A soft sigh escaped him before he sank down to his bed, utterly drained of all energy.

"K-Kyou-kun! Are you alright?" Tohru asked, diving to his side.

"Yeah. Just let me sleep…" he replied, throwing an arm over his eyes.

"Ah, of course! Um…will you be okay with just this one blanket?"

"M'fine, Tohru…" Kyou mumbled, already drifting.

Tohru gave a soft smile that went unseen by the cat; she stood up quietly and tiptoed out of the room, sliding the door shut gently behind her. _'Ah! I left the tea tray in there!' _she realized with dismay as she headed down the stairs. _'I don't want to go in there now that Kyou-kun's asleep…I guess it'll be okay to leave it till tomorrow.'_

Back in his room, Kyou slowly let his arm slip from his face. _'Like I can sleep now,' _he thought bitterly. Thoughts that he had never before encountered wanted to race desperately through his mind, but it was the effort to repress them that kept him awake in spite of his total exhaustion.

Frustrated, he sat up and stared at his empty walls and nearly empty room; the lamp on his dresser was still on. Looking for anything else to blame his wakefulness on, he stalked over to it while giving it a bone-chilling glare full of murderous intent. Reaching for the off switch, his eyes fell to the little tea tray that Tohru had left behind. Images of her worried face flickered before his mind's eye - and then were suddenly replaced with visions of a certain two-toned cursed cow, downing the steaming hot tea; turning to face him head-on; hovering over him, eyes wide in shock…

Kyou balked, shaking his head as though to forcefully remove the imagery. He grabbed the remaining cup of tea, which had cooled downa bitsince being brought up to his room, and chugged it down. _'If only this were alcoholic…!' _he found himself thinking, slamming the empty cup back down onto the tray and settling back down on his bed.

Kyou felt the warmth spreading through his stomach to the rest of his body, and in spite of the fact it was a non-alcoholic nightcap he found himself starting to drift off. A final image of Haru wearing his sweats - _'Damn it, he still has those!' _- flashed through his mind, and his eyebrows came down harshly until a memory from long ago took its place.

**_'You should try to avoid going to bed angry; falling asleep with a glare will give you bad dreams.'_**

"...Shi…shou."

------

"Haa-san! Isn't Yuki-kun just too cruel?"

"What perversions are you trying to fill his head with now?"

"Nooo! Not you too, Hatori!" Shigure wailed downstairs.

"Um…we're sorry to have to bother you at this hour, Hatori-san…" Tohru said. "Thank you for coming!"

Hatori, who had just arrived to retrieve his wayward livestock, gave her a tiny smile. "This is nothing." Turning to said livestock, he asked, "Are you ready?"

"Yeah," Haru replied. He had just finished putting his damp shoes back on and had his wet clothes bundled under one arm.

"Were you planning on going home without a shirt?" Hatori inquired, shutting his eyes against the oncoming headache.

"I figured I wouldn't need to borrow one if I was getting a ride home," Haru said plainly.

"In that case there's no need to further impose on Honda-san's hospitality."

"Hospit--! You know Haa-san, this is _my_ house," Shigure pouted.

"Only in name," Hatori replied. "Come on," he said to Haru as he turned to walk out the door. "Thank you for taking care of him, Honda-san."

"Think nothing of it!" she called after him. "Take care, Hatsuharu-san!"

"Yes, you too," Haru said, giving a polite bow before walking out and shutting the door behind him.

Tohru smiled at no one in particular. "I guess things worked out after all," she said, thinking back to the fight upstairs.

"Honda-san," Yuki said, coming closer, "What was all that noise upstairs? Did anything happen?"

"Eh? Oh, um…n-nothing really…" she stammered nervously, thinking Kyou might get in trouble if Shigure, who was also listening quite interestedly, found out how close he'd come to putting some holes in the house again.

"'Nothing,' eh? Ahh, my youth was full of a lot of 'nothings' too…ah, Tohru-kun! You are truly a shining example of a wondrous flower in bloom!" Shigure wrapped an arm around her shoulder and would have gone on had his head not suffered the sudden impact of Yuki's fist.

"Lay another finger on her and they'll _all_ be parted from your hands, stupid dog."

------

**Author's Note:** Don't eat my spaces anymore, you evil website! Grr. I could have posted this earlier, but my internet decided to die. Luckily it's been fixed today, so it's all good now.

Anywho...looks like our boys finally got to have a little fun for us, hm? Ah but what will the next morning bring? The proverbial 'morning after'...a mystery. Threw in a little Hatori for you too, poor guy. And in case anyone's wondering, don't expect to see too much of Yuki in this fic. What you've seen of him so far is probably going to be the greatest extent to which I'll let him hang around. Kuso nezumi!


	4. Chapter 4

The next morning dawned bright and clear, the night's storm merely a memory left shining in beads off the leaves and grass.

As usual, Kyou had awoken early. Whereas he would have gone downstairs for a shower right after waking most mornings, today was a little different. Kyou never really awoke fully refreshed after a rainy night, and this was no exception; however he felt considerably worse for wear from the events that had transpired in this very room the night before.

So it was that Kyou simply contented himself with watching the early sun's weak rays peeking through his window to stretch out faintly across the floor. He felt perfectly comfortable where he was, and enjoyed the total blankness of mind that one can only really experience either after a long bout with unconsciousness or by being Hatsuharu Sohma.

And just like that, Kyou's blissful peace of mind was shattered when the thought of Haru suddenly entered his mind. Indulging in a groan of misery, he heaved himself up off the bed and stretched both his arms high above his head; after his back cracked satisfyingly he sighed and went on a hunt for his school uniform.

_'Damn it, where the hell did I leave it yesterday before I went out?' _he wondered to himself. Finally he found it after fully turning out his bedding. "What the hell?" he mumbled to himself, wondering how it could possibly end up wedged under the blanket.

After collecting his clothes he made his way downstairs to the bathroom for a shower. The first thing he noticed upon entering the room was that the sweat pants he always ran in were not in their usual spot. _'Damn it, that stupid cow actually walked out of the house in those! He can't have even been wearing underwear either…' _

"GAH!" he said out loud, giving himself a quick whap on the head. "Don't go there, don't think about it…don't think about it…don't think about it…"

He went through his shower doing his best not to think about 'it,' often returning to chanting his newly discovered mantra of "Don't think about it," aloud. "Great, now I'm gonna have to start talking to myself to keep my mind off it…goddamn it, I already AM talking to myself!"

------

Over on the Sohma estate, Haru was having a likewise different kind of morning than usual. He had gone to sleep the night before thinking about what had happened yesterday with Kyou; upon waking his brain picked up right where it had left off, as though the hours of dreams in between had never occurred.

When he went Black, he was fully aware of what he was doing; after all, the Black part of his mind and heart only enabled him to let go and do what he really wanted. It just lacked self-restraint, to put it lightly. It wasn't a matter of there being two Haru's, for they were indeed one in the same. Like the waning and waxing moon, he had a dark side and a light side and phases that changed their balance. While one might be hidden in the shadow of the other, both were always present.

Kyou had always been stubborn, but something about the way he relentlessly held his hatred for something as trivial as photographs disturbed Haru somewhere deep down - deep enough to reach his Black side. He hadn't been lying when he had told Kyou that he liked photos; what could possibly be so bad about something that Haru loved that it drew only hatred out of Kyou? The question had been circling through his mind almost nonstop since the discovery had been made. It had made him angry when Kyou refused to give his reasons, because in a way it had felt like Kyou was saying he hated a part of Haru himself without telling him why.

_'What could it be about them…about what makes me happy…that could cause him such pain? Am I wrong to like them?'_

He wasn't sure how long he had been staring at the wall opposite his bed while lost in thought, but he was suddenly interrupted by a soft knock on the door. "Haru, wake up or you'll be late." It was Hatori, as usual. At least some things stayed the same after part of one's foundations are rocked, apparently.

------

Back in Kyouville, the morning seemed to be dragging along disturbingly slowly. Kyou had finished showering and gotten dressed, finally emerging from the bathroom and heading for the kitchen. A glance at the clock on the wall told him he'd barely been up for fifteen minutes, and that he'd woken up earlier than usual as well.

Sighing to himself, he reached into the fridge for the usual carton of milk, turned around, and ran right into Tohru. "Oof," he let out quietly, narrowly avoiding hitting her head-on and catching hold of her arm before she could stumble. "You've really got to stop sneaking up on people like this, Tohru," he said, letting out another sigh while she collected herself.

"I'm so sorry, Kyou-kun! And right after what happened last night too…" she looked positively distraught.

Kyou bristled and took a nervous step back. _'Crap! Did she see…?' _"Y-yesterday?"

"Yes, when I bumped Hatsuharu-san into you. Oh, that was so terrible! I thought for sure I'd hurt the both of you! And I almost spilled that hot tea all over Hatsuharu-san's back - that could have caused serious harm to bare skin!"

Kyou turned back to the open fridge to hide his burning face at the mention of semi-naked Haru. "That…that's nothing, Tohru, don't worry about it. Nothing bad happened." He felt his face grow hotter and he choked on whatever else he was going to say. _'Damn it! I did NOT just call it good. Never. Never in a million years!'_ He clenched his fingers in his hair in frustration. "Never…nevernevernevernevernever…" he chanted under his breath.

"Um…Kyou-kun? Are you okay?" Tohru asked carefully. "Y-you're talking to yourself…"

"I'M FINE!" Kyou yelled, diving headfirst into the fridge and pretending to rifle through the shelves for some hard-to-reach breakfast food.

"O-of course!" Tohru agreed readily, not understanding what was causing Kyou's outbursts but still determined not to add to it.

Back inside the refrigerator, Kyou grimaced. _'It's going to be a long…long day.'_

------

"What's up with Kyon?"

"Eh?"

"His waves do seem a bit more erratic than usual…"

"I've never seen him pay such close attention in class before."

"It seems that each time a wave goes awry he pays closer attention to the lecture..."

"You two didn't have a fight or anything, did you Tohru?"

"EHH?"

It was the last class before lunch, and Kyou had been quite right - it _was_ going to be a long day. Not that he'd been a bad student before, but like any other kid he had a tendency to space out every now and then in class, and especially right before lunch. But every time he allowed his mind to wander from the equations on the page in front of him it inevitably landed on the subject of Haru. He couldn't just start rambling to himself in class, in front of twenty-five other people and their no-nonsense teacher, just to distract himself. So he had settled for making the chalkboard and the woman writing on it the center of his universe.

It worked, for the most part. At least it did until Kyou discovered just how many seemingly non-related subjects could remind him of Haru. Even he couldn't figure out what the quadratic formula had to do with the stupid cow, except maybe for the fact that neither of them made a whole lot of sense.

Finally the bell rang for the lunch break. Kyou made sure to thoroughly memorize the homework assignment before slowly and very precisely putting his desk back in order. He was dreading this time more than any other part of the day - the period he was most likely to bump into Haru. They didn't eat lunch all together that frequently, and he was hoping with all his might that today the wandering bovine would avoid the group.

"Man…I should have asked Momiji to drag that stupid cow around school during lunch," Kyou lamented under his breath.

"Kyoooou! Are you talking about me?" a familiar childlike voice rang through the air. Kyou snapped up in his seat and looked to his right; Momiji was there, giving him a pouty mock-glare. "Kyou, you shouldn't talk about people when they're not in the room!"

Kyou stood up and ground his fist to Momiji's head in a vicious noogie. "You _are_ in the room, rabbit brain," he ground out.

"Waaaaah, Kyou's picking on meeee!" Momiji whined.

This had almost become their way of greeting each other; in spite of the comfort of indulging in the usual ritual, Momiji's appearance was cause for much alarm in Kyou. Usually it only heralded the arrival of Haru, and this was precisely the thing Kyou did not need at the moment. Or ever.

"Well, I don't know about you guys but I'm starving. Let's get out of here and go eat before all the good lunch spots get taken."

"What are you talking about, Kyon?" Uotani Arisa said flatly from a few feet in front of the door to the classroom. "We've all been waiting on your pokey ass to go eat, so get a move on!"

"WELL WHO ASKED YOU TO DO THAT?" he yelled back, finally abandoning his desk.

"If we didn't you'd get lost and then we'd have to spend five bucks filing a missing pet report at the animal shelter. And I hate putting up flyers."

"WHAT'D YOU SAY?"

"YOU HEARD ME, YOU LITTLE LOST KITTEN!"

"SAY THAT AGAIN! I'LL KILL YOU, YOU BITCH!"

"What did you bring for lunch today, Tohru-kun?" Hanajima Saki asked in her usual unchanging tone.

Tohru smiled at her friends' liveliness as they continued to bicker before responding. "Oh just the usual, Hana-chan! Would you like to share it with me?"

"I would love to," Hana replied with the smile she reserved solely for Tohru.

"Oh, Momiji; there you are."

The group turned almost as one to look at the newcomer, and Kyou's nightmare suddenly began to take a turn form in the real world - Hatsuharu Sohma had arrived.

------

**Author's Note: **And once again we end it with Haru showing up. Haru, stop killing my chapters!

A few things…one, I think I've figured out the space-eating problem. (knock on wood) We'll see with this chapter I guess. Don't worry, the 'nevernevernever' is intentional. Second, I could have posted this on Saturday night but the site decided to be a little BITCH and not let me upload anything till now. They never make anything easy, do they? Third,sorry that this chapter is a bit shorter than the rest (only by about a hundred words, but I have strict standards for myself), and that…not a whole hell of a lot happened. Gomeeeeeeen…GOMEN NASAAAAAAAAAI.

Sorry I just like doing that. Ritsu moment. Next chapter! Shouldn't be too late in arriving, and guaranteed to have more action than this one. Thanks to everyone who reviewed, and even to those that didn't, cause at least you're still reading.

**P.S.** - I've posted an ad in my profile, but like anyone reads those, right? Anyway, if anyone needs a beta reader for anything they're writing, I am available.


	5. Chapter 5

_'Shit!' _Kyou was screaming in his mind. _'We didn't move fast enough! Aaagh, if only we'd gone out earlier we could have lost him or something…that damn Yankee, this is totally all her fault!'_

"Ah, Hatsuharu-san! Are you joining us for lunch today?" Tohru asked, approaching the younger boy while Kyou was silently passing the blame around for getting caught in this situation.

Haru shrugged. "I guess. I was looking for Momiji."

"And you're well? You didn't catch anything from being out in the rain, did you?"

"Not at all. And Ha'ri was only mad at me for most of the night."

"Eh…"

Haru had yet to even look in Kyou's direction, while the cat on the other hand was busy trying to burn holes into him with his eyes. _'That bastard thinks he can just ignore me, huh? Well fine! I'll ignore him TWICE as hard as anything he can dish out!_' Kyou promptly huffed and turned away from the entire group, crossing his arms in front of his chest as he began walking off in the general direction of the cafeteria.

"Oi, where do you think you're running off to, Kyon?" Uo called after him. "No way are you leaving us behind when you kept us here for so long!"

"Shut up, you damn Yankee! Go find your eyebrows or something!" Kyou yelled back, irritated and not stopping.

From out of nowhere, Uo promptly whipped a spare desk chair above her head and made to chuck it at the moving target while the others watched. Tohru nearly let out a shriek and attempted to stop her rampaging friend, but was saved the trouble by a flash of black and white.

As Uo threw all her weight behind the throw, she suddenly found herself…stuck? She turned her head around to see what was going on behind her, only to discover that Haru had a firm grip on the chair leg. "Hey, let go, damn it!" she yelled at him, tugging viciously at the chair.

Haru, once again in true rock fashion, remained unmoved. "If you break it, the school will make you pay for it," he said blankly, his face mirroring his tone.

Uo blinked; her arms wavered for a moment and then slowly lowered, bringing the chair down with a heavy thump. Tohru, looking incredibly frazzled if not relieved, felt like joining it on the floor after such a fright.

"Aw, that was nice of you, Haru!" Momiji beamed up at the only one there wearing the male's uniform. "Now Kyou-kun won't have a lump on his brain!"

"You mean his head," Haru corrected automatically, staring off into the distance as Kyou rounded the corner of the hallway, oblivious to how narrowly he had just avoided having his brains knocked out through his nose.

"Anyway…" Uo muttered, putting her arms up behind her head and looking back at the others. "We should get going, that stupid jerky cat-lover wasted ten of our precious lunch minutes already."

------

Said stupid jerky cat-lover was currently lounging in one of his usual haunts - the roof of the school building. It was pretty nice there in the sun, eyes closed against the bright blue sky that held no trace of yesterday's storm. Whenever there was trouble Kyou felt compelled to head for the hills, and the bigger the better. Up here no one could see him; up here no one could look down on him.

Unless they happened to be standing right over his prone form, blocking his sun, like someone was currently doing.

_'Inconsiderate bastard,' _Kyou thought, refusing to open his eyes and instead trying valiantly to glare through shut eyelids.

"Are you having a bad dream?"

_'Shit. It's that dumbass Haru AGAIN,' _Kyou thought, a bitter taste rising from his stomach into his mouth at the realization. "Nothing I dream could _possibly_ be worse than what's happening in my real life right now," he said aloud, his face contorting into a grimace.

The shadow that had fallen over Kyou's face moved away, and for a spilt second Kyou's heart leapt in the hope that the idiot cow had taken the hint and gone away - until he felt someone plop down right next to him on the roof. _His_ roof. A low growl, barely perceptible to the human ear, began from somewhere deep down in his chest; he still refused to open his eyes though. _'If I can't see him, he's not really here…maybe this really is just a dream…but then why the hell am I dreaming about Haru!' _He let out a groan and turned away from the boy sitting next to him, hands cradling his head.

"Is it really that bad?" Haru asked quietly.

Kyou blushed fiercely and flinched. Haru couldn't read minds, could he?

"Whatever's going on in your real life that's so bad right now, I mean."

_'Oh.' _Kyou's blush deepened, and he was immensely grateful that he'd had the foresight to turn away before it had become an issue. How did Haru always manage to make everything sound so wrong? "How…how can you ASK me that, you idiot? You were there, of course it's bad!"

"You really are bothered by it, aren't you," Haru observed, casting a sidelong glance at orangey.

"OF COURSE I'M BOTHERED BY IT! More importantly, why are YOU so okay with it?" Kyou finally broke, turning around to yell into Haru's face.

Haru didn't even blink. "I thought you knew that I like that stuff," he said plainly.

Kyou was flabbergasted and spluttered for a minute before managing to spit out a response. "M-me? Knowing about…why the hell would I want to know something like that! I don't even want to think about what you do in your free time, you pervert!" He promptly scrambled back a few feet and turned away again, muttering under his breath about 'stupid horndogs worse than Shigure.'

Haru blinked. "I don't know what you may have heard, but I don't do the dirty pictures anymore. And that was really just the one time for Ayame's PR."

Kyou looked back at Haru, opening his mouth to respond; unfortunately he couldn't get his jaw back up to do so. Thus he settled for a wary grimace while he managed to turn a remarkable shade of green. "Ayame--no, no. Please don't elaborate, I just ate." A bead of cold sweat made its way down the back of Kyou's neck.

"Are you alright, Kyou?" Haru asked, raising an eyebrow. "You like kind of sick."

"You would too if you had even the slightest semblance of a _shred_ of normalcy in your entire body! What the HELL do dirty pictures of Ayame have to do with YOU falling onto my face last night!" Kyou yelled, realizing a bit too late that privacy wasn't exactly guaranteed at school, even up on the roof.

Haru stared for a moment. "Is that what you meant by the bad things going on in your life?"

"OF COURSE IT IS! What the hell else would it be?" Kyou huffed, trying his damnedest not to turn pink at the subject he'd wanted to avoid for the rest of his natural life - hell, if no one mentioned it in the afterlife it would still be too often.

"Oh. I thought you meant your thing with pictures," Haru said, directing the comment to his feet for some reason as he looked away from Kyou.

"Thing with pic--you're STILL going on about that? Either you've got an extremely one-track mind that's a lot less perverted than I thought, or your current track is stuck in a loop. When are you gonna get over the fact that pictures just BUG THE SHIT OUT OF ME?" Kyou glared for all he was worth now that the cow was no longer meeting his eye.

"Well you don't seem to want to talk about our kiss from last night," Haru provided helpfully.

A few stray syllables fell from Kyou's lips at that. "Sh-shut up, you moron! There's nothing to talk about!"

"It's really bothering you though," Haru persisted. "It helps if you talk about what's bothering you, you know."

"And what, you're _okay_ with it?" Kyou demanded, incredulous.

Haru shrugged. "I admit I'm more bothered by your hatred of photos; the rest isn't really a huge deal to me."

"Ha," Kyou scoffed, crossing his arms. "Yeah right, moo-juice. I saw you go from Black to White faster than you ever have before after….after…."

"The kiss," Haru said for him. "Wow, you can't even say it. That wasn't your first kiss, was it, Kyou?"

"Don't try to change the subject, idiot!" Kyou cried, though his tomato-red flush gave Haru all the answer he needed.

"I'm sorry," he said earnestly to Kyou. "I don't imagine that was the way you would have wanted your first kiss to be."

"SH-SHUT UP, GODDAMMIT!" Kyou yelled at the top of his lungs and delivered a vicious punch to the wall behind them, humiliated beyond all belief. "I don't need sympathy from a deranged twerp like you!"

"It's not like either of us were really at fault," Haru tried to reason. Was he actually trying to make Kyou feel better about it? "If you'll recall, nothing was happening until Honda-san came in and--"

"Don't bring her into this!" Kyou raged. "She wouldn't have had anyone to push into my face if you hadn't…if you hadn't l-leaned in so close…" he trailed off, his voice growing quieter with each word. He turned his face away to glare at the treetops.

Haru's head tilted slightly to the side as though letting the words roll around in it to get settled in his brain. Then he stood up slowly, deliberately; he walked carefully over to where Kyou was standing with his hand still resting in the dent his punch had created. A fine trickle of blood made its way down from his knuckles to his wrist, dripping onto the ground. The sight of it made something in Haru snap - but it wasn't Black Haru.

Kyou's eyes widened, frozen by shock as arms wrapped around him from behind. The taller boy's mouth was too close to Kyou's ear for his comfort, and he flinched when Haru spoke quietly into it. "I _am_ sorry, Kyou. Don't hurt yourself on my account." Haru gently pulled Kyou's hand from the wall as he spoke to illustrate his point.

Growling, Kyou shoved Haru away and took a few steps forward, his body trying to shiver away the memory of the contact. His instinct to run away as fast as his legs would allow was rendered incapacitated by his conflicting emotions; his anger, his confusion, his humiliation, his somewhat vague sense that by sticking around he would get more answers than if he were to high-tail it out of there. Unfortunately it all balled up into a giant lump that lodged itself in his throat and prevented any words from making their way out of his mouth, and the force of it all caused him to shake faintly.

A line of worry broke Haru's usually tranquil demeanor at the cat's reaction; _'He looks like he's about to explode,_' he observed inwardly. Normally this could be fun to watch - Kyou always had such interesting facial expressions at times like these - but for once it hadn't been what Haru had intended. He wasn't oblivious as to when he was less than welcome, but he didn't want to leave Kyou unless asked. He had gotten Kyou into this state, and Haru wanted to rectify the situation.

Kyou's mind was racing so fast, every thought he had blurred into the next until they were such a muddled mess that he might as well had not been thinking at all. So he stopped; he turned around, his face blank. He passed Haru without sparing him a glance, opened the door leading back downstairs to the main building, and shut it quietly behind him.

Haru didn't know what to make of this exit; it contradicted everything about Kyou. He had no idea what it signified, or how it needed to be dealt with. He had never seen this kind of Kyou, one who couldn't even yell out his frustrations.

The two-toned teen heaved a small sigh. _'Nice going,' _he thought to himself. _'You broke him.'_

------

**Author's Note:** Aww, our poor angst buckets! Such confusion, such animosity, such potential...

First off, let me say thank you for the reviews on the last chapter. I got my first demand to update! Before you know it the death threats will be rolling in, right? x.x Sorry I'm still trying to figure out how one little chapter managed to throw my hit count from 260 to 600 in just a matter of days. Thank you all for reading, readers and reviews make me happy.

Next chapter: I forsee more angsting, more yelling, some moping, a good deal of mental abuse, and possibly some perversion. Good?


	6. Chapter 6

The rest of the day passed fairly quickly; or rather, it passed unnoticed by Kyou. His unresponsive state remained with him in spite of his surroundings, and even when the bell rang at the end of the day his reaction was reduced simply to the mechanical actions of packing his bag.

Tohru approached the boy carefully, having long since noticed how zoned-out he was behaving. "Um…Kyou-kun?"

A grunt of acknowledgement.

"Um…you have your training session with Shishou-san today, right?" she continued valiantly.

A grunt of affirmation.

"Ah…um, will you be home in time for dinner, or were you planning on staying over with Shishou-san?" She cleverly worded the question so that it required more than a simple 'yes' or 'no' - or its grunted counterpart.

"Shishou…Shishou's place." And Kyou left it at that, standing up from his chair and walking with even strides towards the door. "Don't wait up for me," he threw over his shoulder.

"Um, right!" Tohru called back, grabbing her own bag and moving over to where Hana and Uo stood to walk to the front gate with them.

"Hey, Tohru," Uo said at her approach. "Did you find out what's up with the cat-lover today?"

"Eh? Well, um…not exactly…" she replied, a tiny worried frown forming on her face.

"His electrical waves were barely in motion after lunch," Hana said softly, as though to further a diagnosis. "Though they were turbulent this morning, since his return after lunch they have been as still and silent as a frozen pond."

"Where have you ever seen a frozen pond?" Uo asked, leveling a flat stare at her friend.

"Hasn't everyone seen a pond frozen over in the frigid grasp of winter?" she replied.

"There aren't any ponds around here…"

Tohru let their conversation fade into the background as she turned her thoughts back to Kyou; he _was_ acting very strange, and though she was used to him being closed-off this was a different kind of barrier entirely. She only hoped his afternoon (and most likely evening) with Kazuma would help bring him back to normal.

------

Kunimitsu Tomoda was having an unusually slow day helping Kazuma at the dojo. The younger and thus more active classes weren't scheduled for today, and Kazuma had had an appointment that barred the earliest classes from taking place. Aside from a few typical phone calls and a run for the fire extinguisher after another of Kazuma-dono's attempts at cooking went up in smoke (all too literally for anyone's tastes), he'd had nothing to do. Fortunately for the inquisitive - _not_ nosy, as so many people insisted - young assistant, today was one of Kyou Sohma's training days at the dojo.

Kyou never seemed to fail to bring in a trail of interesting things behind him, and it was never dull when he was around. Even back in the days when he would hardly spare Kunimitsu a grunt, never mind small talk, the boy exuded an air of mystery. Something about him begged further delving into - though perhaps that only applied in the dojo, where violence _didn't_ warrant a reprimand.

At any rate, Kunimitsu was ready and waiting for the younger boy to enter the dojo. Kyou's disposition had improved so greatly over the past several months that Kunimitsu and Kazuma were no longer the only ones who looked forward to the days he stopped by the dojo - and for some reason, the little kids in their first years of training especially couldn't seem to get enough of him now. Kunimitsu had found it somewhat endearing; Kyou had only found it annoying, and had thus rescheduled most of his training days to be on those without the beginner classes. Not all of them though, Kunimitsu couldn't help noticing; he figured that somewhere deep down, Kyou liked being looked up to by the young students who knew him only as "Kazuma-dono's son."

Kunimitsu heard the door slide open from his seat in the small office beside the front hall. _'Speak of the devil,_' he thought to himself with a small smile, standing up and making his way to the front to properly tease, pester, embarrass, and otherwise greet the orange-haired youth.

"Well, look what the cat dragged in!" he called out brightly upon viewing the orange mop of hair, as the boy to which it belonged sat taking off his shoes. The boy that…just continued to slowly take off his shoes.

"Hmm?" Kunimitsu blinked in mild surprise. Usually that line was worth at least a growl from Kyou (though for no reason that Kunimitsu could understand), and even on bad days he could deliver a clipped "What do you want?" to the good-natured boy's greeting.

Putting aside his hesitations at the unusually…_absent_ reaction, Kunimitsu walked up behind Kyou and peered over his shoulder. "Hey Kyou," he said, doing his best to sound normal, "You're a little early today. He should still be in the back if you want to go find him."

"Nn."

_'Well I guess that's better than nothing,' _Kunimitsu thought wryly to himself. _'Guess someone here had a bad day at school…better leave it alone.'_

"Well, have fun with training today. Oh and that girl that's been joining in on your sessions said not to wait for her, as she won't be able to make it again. She's been missing a lot of the sessions lately; you two have a fight or something?" he asked with a grin.

"No," Kyou replied as he stood up, finally free of his shoes. The one-word answer didn't hold any hostility or frigidity; it was simply toneless, as though the speaker were on auto-pilot. It gave Kunimitsu the shivers.

_'Scary…' _he thought to himself. "Well uh…I'll just be getting back to work now, Kyou-kun. Good luck and all." He made a hasty exit and hid in the office while Kyou walked past.

Kyou sighed inwardly as he made his way to the back rooms of the dojo, looking for Shishou. It was a bit of a relief to be away from school and all those in it, especially a certain perverted idiot that couldn't keep his hands to himself… Now that Kyou had put some distance between them, his brain had stopped seizing up at the smallest attempts to sort out his thoughts about everything. Still, picking them apart one by one was already giving him a headache - and walking distractedly into the doors instead of opening them first was _not_ helping.

Muttering a soft curse under his breath, Kyou slid the door open while rubbing the nose he had just crashed into the doorframe. "Shishou?" he called out, gazing around the room for signs of his foster father.

"Back here, Kyou," a faint call came from an adjoining room to the right. Kyou followed the voice to the small library that Shishou had set up in the dojo for his more work-and-research oriented books. He found the older man in a corner by the small window, scanning the shelves with his back to his son.

"What are you doing back here?" Kyou asked from the doorway, a note of curiosity entering his voice.

Kazuma turned around with a smile while pulling a book off the shelf. "Just doing a bit of research while I was waiting for you; it's been a bit of a slow day today." He put the book on the small table in the middle of the room and made his way to Kyou. "But since you're here early, we might as well get started."

"Sorry if I interrupted you," Kyou muttered, looking away.

A note of worry entered Kazuma's eyes. "Of course you didn't interrupt anything," he said. "There's nothing any parent would get a more pleasant surprise out of than their child showing up earlier than expected; that just gives us more time, doesn't it?" he finished with a smile, nudging Kyou's chin back up playfully.

Kyou scratched the back of his neck, a bit of a nervous habit; but he smirked in return. "You'd better prepare yourself, Shishou, 'cause today I'm not gonna take things easy."

"Oh, I'll look forward to it then," he replied, glad that the uneasy moment had passed. "But maybe you should get changed first before you ruin your school uniform."

"I'm going, I'm going," Kyou said over his shoulder, already making his way to the room Shishou kept his clothes in.

"Don't trip over Kunimitsu on the way," Kazuma retorted, humour lacing his voice. A soft _thump_ attested to the third presence that had been in the hallway for some time, followed by a resounding _thwack_ from Kyou and the accompanying cry of protest from the accosted assistant.

Kunimitsu finally revealed himself to his boss, rubbing at what was sure to become a gigantic bump on his head. "Did you really have to set him on me like that?" he asked, somewhat petulantly.

Kazuma nodded, still smiling. "I've told you before that spying is a bad habit that would get you into trouble one day, after all."

"Yeah, but did it have to come from you?" the younger man lamented. "And I wasn't _spying_, I was just checking on Kyou."

"Did you find out what you wanted to know?"

"…I didn't have time to get close enough to hear anything."

Shishou's laughter reached even a bemused Kyou as he changed out of his school uniform.

------

Haru was lost. Again.

Not that this really bothered him all that much.

He had gone out for a walk before dinner, after failing for the fifth consecutive time to beat the big bad boss at the end of his video game. Sometimes he just needed to let his thumbs cool off before he finally got it - and sometimes, he was just so distracted by his thoughts that he forgot what he was doing until the cheery **_GAME OVER _**flashed over his character's gory, mangled body on the TV screen.

He couldn't help it, though; every other minute, the vision of Kyou's fiery eyes slowly dulling in confusion and numbness flashed into Haru's mind. And he also couldn't help feeling the deadweight of guilt settling in his stomach. So, since distractions proved fruitless in helping to alleviate the feeling, he had decided to go out wandering in order to let his thoughts run wild.

And so they had; Haru found that letting oppressive thoughts run rampant gave them less steam, and thus became more manageable. He realized he was somewhat opposite from Kyou in that respect, as Kyou tried his damnedest to stop thinking about the things that bothered him. _'I'll have to talk to him about that,_' he told himself, taking stock of his surroundings. _'Well, if worse comes to worst, people from the main house might go out looking for me in a few days. Good thing there's no school tomorrow.'_

It was getting dark; a small grumble let Haru know that his stomach did not take as well to being lost as he himself did. He paused in the middle of the street, idly scratching his cheek as he wondered which way to go. Suddenly he noticed a familiar style of wooden fence, and went up to it for closer inspection. Sure enough, he had discovered one of the corners of fencing bordering the Sohma estate.

"…I found it." Haru blinked in mild surprise. This might just be a record for shortest amount of time missing. The only problem now was to figure out which way led to the front gate; the directions in which the fence stretched both disappeared in the growing dark, neither giving a clue as to which led most directly to the gate.

Another, more insistent growl from Haru's stomach led him to pick the path right in front of him and hope for the best.

------

"Hold it!" Kazuma's yell froze Kyou in place; the boy didn't even blink.

They had been training for longer than the usual hour, and as they progressed Kyou's attacks grew in intensity and speed; at present, Kyou had managed to pull off a complex disarming move, and Shishou wanted him to hold the follow through as long as possible, as it was something he always had trouble with.

Beads of perspiration collected on Kyou's forehead and rolled down his neck, but he held the position, determined not to let go until Shishou gave the word. His eyes flared with determination, and everything he had was focused on this one move.

Finally, Shishou gave a smile and pushed away to stand a few feet apart from Kyou. "You weren't kidding when you said you weren't taking things easy today, Kyou," he said. His forehead glittered faintly with sweat from the session, though not nearly as much as his student's. "You've made some spectacular improvements."

Kyou caught his breath soon, the look of determination never leaving his face. "Can we go one more time, Shishou?" he asked soberly. "I really want to get it perfect today."

Kazuma arched an eyebrow in mild surprise. "You shouldn't overdo it, Kyou, you could burn out." He studied Kyou for a moment; they had been training harder than usual, and Kyou showed no signs of slowing down or cooling off - in other words, something was bothering him and he needed a distraction. A big one, by the looks of it. "We ought to start on the last round soon."

"But Shishou…" A flicker of desperation shone in Kyou's eyes. "I've got too much energy built up to go into the cool-down kata yet! I feel like I could go on for another two hours, at least! I feel like I'm about to explode if I don't work it out…"

The older man gazed at the boy he had long accepted as his own, whose habits and feelings he understood perhaps even better than the boy did himself. "Kyou…"

"I mean it! Don't worry about it, Shishou, I want to keep going!" _'And never stop,' _he added silently to himself. He could lose himself completely in his training, could keep focused on it for as long as his body would allow consciousness. Then after that, a blissful, dreamless coma brought on by exhaustion. Shishou was right about the burning out, but that just so happened to be the goal here.

"Kyou," Kazuma said firmly, though not unkindly; "I don't want to help you to run away anymore."

Kyou's eyes widened fractionally at that, and flashes of the night Shishou had taken his beads off went through his head. He lowered his gaze to the padded mats on the floor, his eyes shadowed by his sweat-damp hair.

"I don't know what it is that's bothering you now, and I'm not going to press you - especially not with my dear nosy assistant anywhere in the vicinity - but I don't want to see you running from the things that hurt you anymore. You're so strong, Kyou…and I only want you to realize that for yourself."

Kyou bit his lower lip; finally he lifted his gaze back up to the only true family he had. He held the other man's steady gaze for a long, silent moment. "…We should…get to the last kata before you close up here."

Shishou smiled softly at that, and nodded. "Alright, starting positions…"

------

Haru was a fairly patient person. For the most part. But this was getting ridiculous.

_'Maybe the Sohma estate is too big,' _he thought to himself. He was walking along the same fence, one hand running lazily over the wooden planks feeling for openings. Night had fallen, and his stomach was being far too noisy than it had any right to be. And he _still_ hadn't managed to figure out what he should do about Kyou, if anything could be done.

Suddenly his hand slipped through a hole on the fence - a plank was missing, and he fell halfway through the opening. He blinked at the sudden change in perspective; _'How long has this been missing?' _he wondered, twisting to pull the rest of himself through.

A few tugs and a short battle with the stubborn fence later, Haru was clambering out of a budding bush with a grunt. At least he was back on Sohma grounds, he tried to reason with his irritated side.

One of the younger maids who had happened to be passing by on her rounds spotted the disgruntled cow child. "Hatsuharu-sama! What on earth are you doing out here? You've missed dinner and Hatori-sama was getting worried--"

"Well I'm here now, aren't I?" Haru grumbled, stepping onto the walkway.

"Hatsuharu-sama, there are sticks in your hair…"

"Yeah and I'll tell you where to put 'em if you don't lay off!" Black Haru, brought out by the power of sheer irritation, yelled at the woman, who gasped.

"H-Hatsuharu-sama!"

"I'm going to get some food; if you wanna keep calling me 'Master' I suggest you wait for me in my room, 'cause I'll be going there afterwards."

The woman just stood in stunned silence, and Haru stalked off, sporting a feral grin.

------

**Author's Note:** Ooookay, I've got a few things to put here...first off, I planned on having this out on like...Saturday. Sorry. I honestly can't offer any excuse other than I was watching Tactics all weekend. Ehehe. What can I say, I have this thing for Kouki Miyata. >.>

I'm not super happy with this chapter, but at least I got to throw Haru in a bush. I didn't mean for it to be this long (2800 words, gah), but it just wouldn't stop. A lot less swearing in this chapter than usual, which I find odd, but then that's probably only because Kyou doesn't do a lot of talking.

Thanks to everyone who reviewed! Last chapter got the most reviews out of them all, and also broke me into 1,000 hits. Whoosh. Next chapter might be a flashbacky (did I promise that with this one?) dinner with Shishou, and also totally Yuki-less.


	7. Chapter 7

"Shishou, grab me a spatula, would you?"

"Sure. That's the wire thing, right?"

"…Never mind. Go sit down before you hurt yourself."

Chuckling, Kazuma sat obediently at the table while Kyou finished up their dinner. After bidding the still slightly sore Kunimitsu farewell for the night, the two had left the dojo and walked back to Kazuma's house. Naturally he had offered the boy dinner, and, naturally Kyou had insisted he be the one to take care of it.

Kyou didn't get the chance to stay over for dinner very often, and they both relished the nights when it did happen. It reminded them both of times long gone by, and reassured them that in spite of the changes that had been brought about in the past year or so, their father-and-son bond wouldn't weaken.

While Kyou was preoccupied making dinner, Kazuma took the opportunity to study the boy. He already knew that something was really weighing on Kyou's mind, but getting the information out of him was more often than not worse than pulling teeth - and depending on the severity of the problem, it could be a lot more painful.

"Really, Shishou," Kyou's voice broke through the man's thoughts. "Would it kill you to keep more than instant ramen and box curry in the kitchen?"

"Quite possibly it wouldn't be limited to only myself," he replied with his usual smile.

Kyou's eyebrow twitched. "Point taken. Anyway, it's ready."

"Great, I'm starved. I seem to have missed lunch."

Kyou snorted. "Kunimitsu did mention something about needing to run for the fire extinguisher earlier today."

Kazuma chuckled, rubbing the back of his head. "Yes, it was one of the more exciting moments of the day, if not one of the messier ones."

Kyou let out an exasperated sigh, though he was smiling through it. "You never learn, do you Shishou?"

The man smiled down at his plate of food. "No, I don't suppose I do."

"Why do you keep bothering, anyway? One of these days you might actually burn the place down," Kyou muttered, taking another bite.

Kazuma trained his gaze on the boy sitting across from him, who remained unaware of the scrutiny. "Oh…I have good insurance," he said vaguely. _'Time to put it to work,' _he thought. _'Let's hope this doesn't bring the house down either.'_

He took a sip of his water as they both lapsed into a brief silence. "Kyou," he began, bringing the boy's attention up from his plate. "Did something…happen today?"

Kyou stilled; his fist tensed around his chopsticks until he put them down before he could snap them in half. He didn't know what to say; he never lied to Shishou, had never even failed to mention certain facts in their conversations. He had never had a need to, and those times when he hadn't felt like dishing the dark-haired man had always managed to work it out of him somehow anyway. _'But is this something I can talk to him about?'_

"Kyou…?"

"It--!" Kyou blurted out before Shishou could dismiss the question for fear of pushing the cat too quickly. "It…it wasn't today, exactly. It really…started last night."

Kazuma's brow furrowed slightly in worry. "Last night? During the storm?"

Kyou quickly shook his head. "It's not about that…well it sort of has to do with that, but it's not what you're thinking," Kyou struggled to clarify, sighing at his own clumsy words.

Shishou smiled at Kyou as he buried his hands into his hair and thunked his head against the table. "How about starting with the first thing that began bothering you last night?" he suggested patiently. He was somewhat surprised at the shade of pink that suddenly flushed the boy's face. "Eh? Kyou?"

Red eyes looked up at him from beneath orange bangs, and Kyou quickly buried his face in arms that he crossed over the table top. Kazuma was left staring at reddening ears for a few moments in silence, wondering how best to continue this conversation, when Kyou finally mumbled something into his arms.

"Sorry, I didn't quite…catch that…" Kazuma said gently.

"…Ha…Harffstmrrph."

"I--I'm sorry, what?"

"HARU KISSED ME." He didn't exactly yell it out, but his voice rang loud and clear as he tore his face away from his arms. Horrified that he had affirmed the dreaded event aloud, Kyou flushed tomato red and quickly averted his eyes from the stunned man sitting across from him.

Kazuma, to his credit, had managed to refrain from letting his jaw fall to the floor like it had wanted. Obviously his hot-headed son was already agonizing over this enough without needing that kind of reaction from him. He was confused, and he needed somebody to help him understand his own thoughts and feelings - though what those thoughts and feelings were exactly made Kazuma's mouth suddenly feel very dry. _'It…it's all a part of raising a child,_' he told himself, reaching for his water glass and draining it. _'This kind of talk was bound to come up sooner or later…and this was only the _first _thing that's been bothering him?'_

Steeling himself against the conversation to come, he quickly schooled his features into his most non-threatening and neutral expression before clearing his throat to catch the boy's attention. Kyou flinched as though the sound had been as loud as a sudden door-slam, and slowly looked back up at his Shishou.

"Kyou…you…don't have to go into any…_details_," he said delicately, careful not to break the eye contact by which the boy was currently caught. "But…you mentioned that there was more to this that was bothering you…?"

Kyou nodded slowly, dropping his gaze to the floor but keeping his head up. Thoughts of that stupid perverted bovine were swirling in his head. _'This is all that idiot's fault - he's even making me act weird to Shishou because of it all!_' His brow came down in a glare directed at an unfortunate wall that promptly became very concerned for its own well-being.

"Yeah, there're a lot of other things that bother me about him," he grumbled at the wall. "Actually I guess that wasn't the first thing, just the…the _biggest problem_," he bit out, showing an incredible amount of restraint in not thrashing around the room and screaming his head off about exactly how much it irritated him.

Kazuma raised a brow at that, wondering what could have possibly happened beforehand that would lead to that exact 'problem'. "Maybe you should just start at the beginning after all," he said evenly.

Kyou sighed and then flopped backwards to the floor, splaying his arms out and staring up at the ceiling. In this unusual position, he began his narrative in a dull monotone. "Well…I had some time before dinner, and the clouds really _hadn't_ looked particularly rain-heavy, so I went out for a walk…"

------

A quiet but firm knock sounded on Haru's bedroom door - and went quite unheard by the pensive cow, due to the fact that he was both extremely spaced out and blasting some chirpy J-pop into his ears through his headphones. (Not that he made it widely known that he was a Crystal Kay fan; he simply hid the fact well enough that he had never been placed in a situation to try to deny it.)

Luckily, the person that was being ignored was Hatori Sohma, and he didn't care to wait for an answer before entering anyway. Sliding the door open briskly, he leaned halfway into the room and spotted the spacey cow laying face up on his bed. "Haru."

The boy didn't even blink.

Hatori sighed inwardly; nothing was ever easy with Haru. He moved into the room and slid the door shut behind him with a sharp _clack!_ - but even that failed to get Haru's attention. Finally the Sohma family doctor - and dragon - loomed over his prone form, crossing his arms and staring down into dark, glazed eyes.

_'…He can't possibly be sleeping with his eyes open…?' _Hatori thought, disturbed at the notion.

"Hey, Ha'ri," the boy suddenly said quietly, slowly removing the buds from his ears.

"So you are in there after all," the older man replied, giving Haru's forehead a flick.

"Ow."

"One of the maids was saying some interesting things about you in the kitchen tonight," Hatori continued in the same tone.

"Oh?" Haru rubbed at the sore spot on his forehead idly, sitting up.

"Oh, indeed. She said you propositioned her after emerging from a bush near the northern apartments."

Haru blinked slowly, pondering this revelation in silence for a moment. "…Oh, her."

Hatori let out a soft, irritated grunt, rubbing two fingers to his temples and sitting himself down in Haru's nearby desk chair. It was bad enough when Black Haru came out and wreaked havoc on the family and those that served them - but Hatori was more often than not the one left to deal with the mess left behind. "Care to explain that one?" he asked, not quite sure if he was ready to hear anything the boy could tell him.

"I was just irritated," Haru said placidly. "And hungry," he added as an afterthought.

The doctor raised a brow at that. "Irritated and hungry? Is that all it takes for your Black side to come out these days?"

"Not usually," the youth admitted, turning his gaze to look out the window that his bed was under.

"Was that what caused it this time?" Hatori asked patiently. He was used to dealing with Haru, which could be both a blessing and a curse. It made for easier conversations with the boy, but it also made Hatori the go-to man for incidents caused by him as well. All anyone really had to do was talk to Haru, he had discovered. The boy didn't generally offer information freely, but he wasn't hesitant to answer direct questions, no matter how personal.

"It pushed me over the edge, I guess," Haru replied with the shrug of a shoulder.

"So what drew you to the edge in the first place?" Hatori asked, drawing a knee up and resting his elbow on it.

"This whole situation with Kyou." Haru took his gaze from the window and stared down at the covers that were bunched at the foot of his bed.

"Situation?" the older man repeated. This was the first he had of any situation.

"Yeah, what happened last night is really bothering him. And that is bothering me."

"What happened last night?"

"Yeah."

"…"

"…"

"Haru. I'm asking you to _tell_ me what happened last night."

"Oh. I didn't tell you on the ride home?" Haru finally looked up at the man sitting a few feet away at the desk.

"All you said was that you had gotten lost and found Kyou in the middle of the woods, and that by some miracle the two of you managed to find your way back to Shigure's house together," the man replied.

"I don't remember saying it like that…"

"You have to admit it is a rather miraculous feat," Hatori said, crossing his arms. "And you don't remember saying it at all. So, what else happened?"

"While I was up in his room, I accidentally kissed Kyou," Haru said plainly, still holding the other man's gaze.

Hatori blinked. Then he blinked again. He opened his mouth to say something, then quickly snapped it shut without making a sound. He hardly knew where to start with this one. "How…does one _'accidentally' _kiss somebody?" he asked slowly.

"Well, Honda-san bumped into me…"

"And Kyou's face broke your fall, did it?"

"Pretty much," Haru nodded.

"I see," Hatori replied sardonically. "And is it a surprise to you that Kyou is bothered by this 'situation'?"

"Well yeah, kind of… At least, I didn't think it would be such a big deal to him. I even apologized to him today for taking his first kiss."

Hatori had to struggle to suppress the choked snort of laughter that wanted to break his tightly controlled visage. He let out a tiny cough, hidden behind a fist. "And that upset him."

"Yeah…a lot, actually. I think…I may have broken him."

The older man just cocked an eyebrow at that, and Haru turned his eyes back down to his feet on the bed. "He couldn't even yell at me after that point. He just…shut off, and walked away without even looking at me."

Hatori studied the youth in front of him. Certainly, Haru spent all of his time worrying about the others around him without sparing a thought for himself - but maybe that was only because very little actually got under the boy's skin in regards to his own affairs.

"Ha'ri…" Haru said quietly, his unwavering gaze boring holes into the bed sheets. "Was I wrong to do that?"

Hatori was silent for a moment; he let out a little sigh. "You would do better to ask him that yourself."

"But talking to him is what made things bad in the first place. Every time I talk to him it just gets worse. Did you know that Kyou hates pictures?"

"…Pictures?"

"Pictures; photos. He hates them. He told me that on the walk back to Sensei's house, but he won't tell me why." Haru brought his hands together in his lap, eyes still on the end of his bed, though clearly no longer seeing it.

"I…can't say I knew that, no," Hatori replied. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"…Nothing, I suppose," Haru said quietly.

"In any case," the older man said, getting to his feet. "I don't know if talking to him will help; but I do know that no issue can be resolved by simply leaving it alone. In the meantime, kindly refrain from harassing our employees. I have enough on my plate as it is without having to find a good lawyer for a sexual harassment suit."

Haru let out a quiet grunt, tuning back into earth long enough to watch Hatori exit the room. The older man opened the door, but then stopped. "For what it's worth… I don't think you were wrong." As suddenly as he had paused, he was over the threshold and sliding the door shut behind him softly.

A soft smile tugged at Haru's lips. _'I guess that settles it then,' _he thought, flopping back down on his bed. _'I suppose I can pay Sensei a visit tomorrow…'_

------

Kyou had been talking for a good ten minutes now; he had managed to work himself into full-on rant mode, a fact for which Kazuma was still debating whether he should be glad or sorry.

"…and he just acts like it's no big deal! Like it happens EVERY DAY! And THEN he has the nerve to APOLOGIZE about it as though I'm crying over it like some little girl! God, that perverted brat never fails to piss me off!" Kyou finished with an exasperated huff.

Kazuma chuckled a little bit as Kyou fumed silently for a few moments. The topic hadn't exactly wandered into the uncharted territory that he had feared it would, though Kazuma supposed he couldn't rule it out completely for the future. Apparently Kyou had really only needed a good venting session.

"It's not _that _funny," the boy muttered, which only caused Kazuma to smile more.

"Sorry, Kyou," he said. "Is it just the way he's been treating you that's gotten to you?"

"Of course it is! I'm not some delicate loser that needs to be apologized to after having someone fall on my face! But he just acts like it's normal, like it doesn't mean anything, like it doesn't…it doesn't…" Kyou suddenly ran out of steam, his brow quirking in confusion.

A look of gentle understanding crossed Kazuma's face. "Like it doesn't raise new questions about yourself?"

Kyou's head bent low; after a moment, it bobbed softly in assent.

Kazuma sighed. "I haven't seen much of Hatsuharu recently, but he always had a strong sense of self, even as a child. It may be that he doesn't have to ask himself those questions because he's known the answers since long before this all happened."

Kyou said nothing, nor did he lift his head or really move at all. But he was listening, and that was all Kazuma needed to go on.

"It may be that talking to him again could help you find the answers to those questions. If not that, at the very least it could help you to resolve the bad feelings between the two of you. Just understand that no matter what answers you find, you'll never stop being my son and you will always be welcome here."

Kyou bit his lower lip, then nodded. He couldn't seem to find his voice anymore, but he knew Shishou would understand.

Kazuma smiled and got to his feet. "Good. Well, since you cooked I guess I'll clean up." He gathered up his plate and reached over the table to get Kyou's, when suddenly the orange-headed boy's hand shot out and gripped his arm.

"Sh…Shishou…" he almost whispered, still not looking up. "Can I…stay here tonight?"

Kazuma put the dishes down and gently touched the hand that gripped him like a lifeline. "Of course, Kyou. I'd be happy to have you back for the night."

The boy's grip released at the answer, then fell completely lax to his side. He got to his feet slowly. "Th--thank you," he said quietly. "I…I think I'll turn in early."

"Goodnight, Kyou," Kazuma said as the boy turned around and made his way down the hall to his old room. Once he heard Kyou sliding his door shut, Kazuma let out a sigh and went back to gathering up the dishes.

_'I only hope the morning will bring him some clarity,' _he thought as he cleaned up the kitchen. It was the only thing he could do well in the place, after having so much practice cleaning up his own disastrous attempts at cooking.

Kyou changed into his usual sleepwear slowly, letting the distant sounds of running water and clinking dishes remind him that he had a home here. He threw himself face-first onto the bed, half tempted to smother himself with the pillow. _'Fine. Fine, fine, fine. I'll talk to the airhead soon, and clear up this whole mess on my own once that's out of the way.'_

_'…'_

_'……'_

_'…and maybe I'll get lucky and smother myself in my sleep.'_

------

**Author's Note:** I hereby declare that I shall no longer predict the events in the upcoming chapters. Damn story just has a life of it's own.

This chapter's a little angstier than I had planned for it to be, but it just strikes me that Kyou would have a difficult time finding out he might be gay. I'm trying to write as realistically as I can, and not rush it along. But seeing as the goal of this fic is to get our boys together (and watch droolfully), I don't really see it ending very soon.

Does anyone else see Hatori looking out for Haru? It's just too cute.


	8. Chapter 8

Daybreak rode in on the tails of a gusting wind. The sky was a blinding white, overcast in solid cloud. The rough breeze, though strong, was not unpleasant in its warmth. Altogether it made for a good morning to sleep in on - at least, it did for Haru.

He slowly came into consciousness, blinking up at the ceiling and already losing his memories of the previous night's dreams. He sat up and rubbed the sleep from his eyes, vaguely wondering what exactly he was supposed to be doing today.

He shuffled over to his dresser and pulled out some new pants and the first shirt he could dig out, then made his way out of his room and to the bathroom. He turned the water on for a bath, feeling too much leftover sleep from being in bed for so long to stand up in the shower for ten minutes. After stripping off his pajamas, he slid into the tub - and promptly shot right back out, emitting a strangely high pitched cry of surprise.

He stood in the middle of the bathroom, shivering sporadically and wondering what had gone wrong. "Oh," he said aloud after a moment. "I guess I forgot to turn the hot water on…"

If Haru had been the kind of person who took the time to worry about those kinds of things, he might have taken this as a bad omen for how the rest of his day was going to go. Instead, he opted for the shower; he found he was _quite_ awake now thanks to the mishap, and set about letting the tub drain.

------

Haru usually liked finding someone to have breakfast with, but just for today he felt like eating alone. He made a quick sweep of the kitchen and took his food with him, heading out the front gate of the large Sohma estate and making for the school.

It was out of the way, yes; but for some reason Haru just couldn't find his way to Shigure's house without starting from the school. The few times he had bothered going to Shigure's house before Yuki had moved in, he'd just been tagging along with Hatori, who had simply driven them there. Even before Haru had started attending that school, he had gone there often to check on Yuki from afar - and sometimes up far too close. He had followed Yuki home enough to be able to find his way there eventually, though, and Haru didn't really mind the detour.

He meandered along, chewing thoughtfully at his toast. He had managed to remember his idea of going to Shigure's to see Kyou today during his shower, and figured that going as early as possible would be best - just in case he did get lost. _'The land around Sensei's house always looks different in the dark anyway,_' he thought, and he knew from experience.

He still didn't know what he planned to say to Kyou once he saw him; this was one of those situations that he felt sure would work out best without any rehearsals. Though technically he viewed _most_ situations like that… he just felt more comfortable speaking from his heart. And he had trouble remembering lines anyway.

So he let his mind rest on the issue, and focused on enjoying the breeze and keeping track of his progress.

------

It took almost an hour, but a few backtracks and one wrong turn later Haru was walking down the familiar path to Shigure's house. When the trees cleared out to make room for the driveway, another familiar path came into his field of vision - the one behind the house that he and Kyou had picked their way down two nights ago in the pouring rain. He paused in his steps and watched the wind playing over the overgrown grasses lining that dirt path, a brief jolt of nervousness suddenly shooting down into his stomach

"Eh? Hatsuharu-san, this is a surprise!"

Haru blinked at the familiar voice of Tohru Honda, who currently had a basket load of freshly washed laundry in her arms. As though suddenly realizing this herself as she followed Haru's line of sight to her burden, Tohru gave a start. "Ah! I'm sorry about not properly welcoming you, Hatsuharu-san, but, well…" she gestured at her basket full of clothes. "Won't you come in?"

"Sure," he replied, giving a little nod and moving forward. _'No going back now.' _He followed Tohru into the house, pausing in the front hall to remove his shoes while she went to put the laundry basket away.

Suddenly Shigure's head popped out of his office just a short way down the hall. "Ah? Haa-kun, what a pleasant surprise!"

"You're up early," Haru replied, straightening up.

"Actually I'm up late," Shigure said, pursing his lips and putting a finger to his chin. "I had to pull an all-nighter to finish my next installment of _'Summer Colored Sigh' _so I can play with Mit-chan."

"You'd stay up for an entire day without sleep just to torture your publisher?"

"_Play_, Haru, I simply _play_ with Mit-chan."

"You're going to pop an embolism in her brain one of these days," Haru said, taking a few steps forward and looking around for signs of Kyou - or anyone other than Shigure.

"Ha ha, you worry too much, Haa-kun. She's young and virile, a little excitement is good for her!" Shigure hid his face behind his fan as he suddenly looked shrewdly at the boy. "Looking for someone?"

"Yeah…"

"Sorry for the wait! Did you want some tea or anything to eat, Hatsuharu-san?" Tohru said, walking back into the hall and tying an apron around her waist.

"I'm alright, Honda-san," Haru replied. He eyed an intent Shigure, who was silently waiting for him to state his business to the girl. "…Is Kyou around?"

Tohru's smile faltered a little, turning apologetic. "I'm sorry, Hatsuharu-san, but he never came home last night from Shishou-san's house. He did say he wouldn't be home for dinner, but he must have spent the night there, too."

"Oh…" Haru said, sneaking another peek at the strangely quiet Shigure, who was still hiding somewhat behind his ever-present fan. "Do you have any idea when he'll be back?"

Tohru smiled at Haru again. "Not exactly, but I'm sure he'll be back soon. He's never gone for more than a day!"

Haru returned her smile with a soft one of his own. "I'll just wait for him here, then. Can I take that tea, on second thought?"

"Of course!" Tohru beamed, then sped off towards the kitchen.

Haru watched her go, silently lamenting being left alone with a certain perverted trouble-maker. He could just _feel_ the man's wheels working to figure out what was really going on between Haru and Kyou, and likely coming to the wrong - or worse, the _right_ - conclusion. Haru was determined not to say more than what was necessary, and he was certainly not going to be the one to break the silence between them.

Suddenly Shigure was hovering over his shoulder with a doofy grin on his face. "Kyoooou-kun, hmm? Did you two have a fight?"

"It was more of a…misunderstanding," Haru replied, not bothering to spare the man a glance. He began walking toward the living room before Shigure could be tempted to delve deeper.

As if that were possible. "Ohh? Are you fighting over a woman? Iyaa, it's not Tohru-kun, is it?" He began to wail.

"How did a person like you ever get anywhere on your own?" Haru replied, flopping down at the table and ignoring the man as much as possible.

"I'm hurt, Haa-kun," Shigure said, tearing up.

"You just need a nap."

"You may be right at that," the older man said with a dramatically exhausted sigh. "If only my dear Mit-chan could understand how much time I put into maintaining our professional relationship!"

"…"

"Well, goodnight then, Haa-kun," Shigure said suddenly with a wave, snapping his fan shut and turning back into his room.

"It's barely noon," Haru replied to the man's back.

"Ahaha!" And the door slid shut with a _clack_.

Haru stared at the door for a while, inwardly relieved the encounter had ended as quickly as it had. He didn't believe for a second that Shigure was uninterested in the goings-on between himself and Kyou - he probably wasn't even going to sleep, just staying up to try and overhear as many juicy tidbits as possible. _'He won't have an easy time of that,' _he thought. _'Honda-san is not the one to trust with prying into other people's business.'_

Pretty soon the girl came back with a tray of tea and snacks, and Haru settled in for what could be quite a wait.

------

Kyou walked slowly back to Shigure's house. It wasn't exactly a nice day by his standards, but it was still enjoyable. He only regretted the fact that he still had to carry his backpack on the way, since he had gone straight to the dojo after school the day before.

The night had proved to be restful for him, thankfully, and it had been a pretty typical morning with Shishou. Kyou was grateful for that, too, the familiarity. They had had their usual breakfast, had exchanged their usual goodbyes; and Kyou had left with the usual peace of mind he got from being around the only man he had ever considered his father. That peace had been somewhat intensified by his coming to some kind of conclusion about how he should deal with his current fix.

One thing was clear; he had to talk to Haru again, to see if these new feelings he was battling with were directly connected to the cow himself or simply just the act they had accidentally engaged in. And the sooner he did that, the better. If it turned out that Haru wasn't the exact object of his affections, he would simply try and explain himself to the younger boy and clear the air. If he did end up feeling something for Haru…well, he hadn't exactly thought that far ahead yet.

He stepped off the curb and crossed over to a street that he took simply because it was always less crowded that the others he could take to get home. He didn't avoid crowds simply for the fear of transforming in public; people honestly just tended to piss him off.

He walked this way sometimes with Tohru on those days when Yuki had other things to do after school, and it was just the two of them. He thought…he _had_ thought for quite some time now that he was seriously falling for the kind girl. But then how could he explain these new feelings roiling inside of him every time he remembered the feel of Haru's warm lips pressed against his own?

He hadn't hated it. He _hadn't_. That was what he hated - the fact that he hadn't hated that feeling, the fact that he couldn't stop thinking about it…and the fact that Haru wasn't going through this same mental torture.

_'Is it because he knows he's not…gay?' _Kyou wondered, thinking back to Shishou's words last night, and still trying to get used to the word itself. He supposed he could be bisexual, if not completely straight or gay…how else could he explain his feelings toward Tohru?

_'If he's not…and if it _is_ him that I…that I'm attracted to…' _He didn't like thinking about the pain and humiliation that could come from that result. He didn't even like thinking about the possibility that he was attracted to him. Of all people, why Haru? Why the moony, spacey, confusing, perverted, bipolar nut job that was his _cousin_ to boot? _'Wait, didn't he used to have a thing for that damned rat? Or what if he still does! Though Yuki's pretty girly himself…'_

Kyou let out a groan and dug his hands into his hair, ruffling it out of frustration. _'One step at a time, then!_' he thought to himself, setting his jaw. Worrying about what _could_ happen and what he should do in situations that, for now, were purely hypothetical - all it ever did was trip him up. The first thing, the only thing he should be focusing on, was getting back to Shigure's house.

He was almost there; only about ten minutes away from the front door. He took a deep, relaxing breath and let it out slowly. He still had the weekend away from Haru, still had homework to focus on; there'd be time to talk to the other boy soon enough, and in the meantime he couldn't be worrying his head off about it.

He stepped into the street that would start his direct path homeward, when suddenly the loud screeching of tires and the squealing of sirens filled his ears; the world seemed to slow down. Coming off the busy street running through the intersection he was crossing, a bright red truck came peeling around the corner - headed right for Kyou.

His eyes widened and his instincts took over. He sank down, leg muscles coiling like springs and arms going out to either side for balance. He shot to the right, just clearing out of the danger zone as the truck fishtailed around him.

His heart was beating rapidly, pumping adrenaline through his body as he whipped around to watch the reckless driver come to a screeching halt at the end of the block. The world came back up to speed.

But before he could breathe a shaky sigh of relief, another set of screeching tires heralded the arrival of a second vehicle coming from behind him. Lights filled his vision and suddenly he was in the air. _'I'm…floating…' _he thought, eyes widening before the world turned upside down and rained down surging pain throughout his body. He hit the pavement with a sickening _crack! _

The world faded into pure whiteness, and he knew no more.

------

"Eh? Did Momiji-kun really say that?"

"Yeah. He can be a little annoying sometimes, but he's still a pretty good kid."

Tohru smiled at the white- and black-haired boy sitting across from her at the table in the living room. They had been having a rather enjoyable chat for the past half-hour, joined briefly by Yuki on his way out to perform some extra duties with his student council that they hadn't been able to finish during school.

The ringing of the house phone interrupted their conversation. "Oh!" Tohru cried, rushing to get up. "Excuse me, Hatsuharu-san! I wouldn't want it to wake up Shigure-san…"

Haru gave a nod and plucked another rice ball from the slowly dwindling pile set out on the table as Tohru hurried to the phone in the hall.

"Yes, Sohma residence! Hello?" She answered brightly. Haru sipped the last of his tea and shoved the rest of the rice ball in his mouth.

"Yes, he…" Tohru trailed off. Something about the way she froze drew Haru's attention.

"I…y-yes…thank you…" She moved to hang up the phone, but seemed to have trouble hitting the mark.

Concerned now, Haru stood and made his way over to the girl. As he neared, he saw that the hands gripping the phone were shaking. "Honda-san…?"

Tohru's eyes slowly came up to meet his own; though they were set directly on him, they gazed off into a distance that only she could see. Haru gently pried her fingers off the phone and hung it up for her.

"K-Kyou…Kyou-kun is…he w-was in an accident…" she struggled to get the words out from around the lump lodged in her throat, and tears filled her eyes as memories of a situation just like this one came flooding back.

Haru's eyes widened and his breath hitched as Tohru's fingers unconsciously gripped the front of his shirt. "T-they found his student ID card…with this number listed on it…h-he's in the h-hospital…"

"Give me the phone," Shigure's voice came from behind the two teenagers, showing that serious side that rarely surfaced. Haru wordlessly handed the receiver to the older man, who quickly went to work dialing. The boy gently gripped Tohru's shoulders, leading them both to the front hall.

_'Her mom…didn't she die in a car accident?' _Haru thought as he stared at the troubled girl.

"Hatori," Shigure said firmly into the phone. "We need you to come drive us to the hospital downtown…yes, right now. It's Kyou."

"Come on, Honda-san," Haru said softly as Shigure's tone lowered. "Get your shoes on so we can be ready as soon as Ha'ri gets here."

Tohru nodded slowly and bent forward to put on her shoes while Haru did the same. He watched her out of the corner of his eye as she struggled to make her shaking fingers work, and pretended not to notice when her tears spilled over silently.

_'Kyou-kun…' _she thought, battling images of her mother laying in that hospital bed - her deathbed. _'I…I can't break down, not here, not now! Just because Kyou-kun's in the hospital doesn't mean…doesn't mean…' _but she stopped that thought before it could bring up another horrible mental image.

"Haa-san is on the way," Shigure said, approaching the two of them. "Save your worries and questions for the doctors at the hospital. We don't know anything yet, so don't assume the worst. Ne, Tohru-kun?" He directed the last comment to her with a rare gentle smile.

She only nodded, unable to speak.

Shigure looked to Haru, and their eyes met; then Haru nodded as well. "Good," the older man said. "Now why don't you two go wait outside, and I'll go get a few things together…"

Shigure walked off deeper into the house while Haru helped Tohru up, once again leading her carefully along. They walked over the threshold, the wind immediately whipping at their faces. They left the door open for Shigure and walked to the end of the driveway. And they waited.

------

**Author's Note:** Please don't kill me. Please?

This serves a purpose, I swear! A few purposes, actually. And if you kill me, you'll never find out what happens next. That was hard to write for me too, you know. Kyou's my favourite character. :cries: My muse is such a cruel bitch. Just ask my Cheri-sama, she knows my characters don't get along with cars, even in original fiction.

**To BakaDen:** Your last review made me uber happy, though I'll understand if you want to smite me now. >.>; As for other fics in which Kyou deals with discovering he's gay...I haven't actually read many of them myself, so I don't know how it's usually done. The shounen ai fics I have read with Kyou tend to skim over this particular bit of drama (or at least they don't savour it the way I do) in favour of fluff/WAFF/smut/etc - not that I mind...


	9. Chapter 9

Haru woke with a start, dark eyes shooting wide open. He didn't even recall falling asleep…

"Careful, or you'll wake her."

He slowly turned his head to the direction the voice had come from - his old martial arts instructor smiled wearily at him from his spot leaning against the wall of the waiting room. Haru followed the man's gaze to the girl that occupied the chair next to him; somehow in her sleep, she had managed to make his shoulder a convenient pillow.

Kazuma eased himself off the wall and moved closer to the youths. "It'd be a shame, she only just managed to drop off."

Haru looked up at the man. "How long have I been out?" he asked, careful to keep his voice low.

"A little over an hour," Kazuma replied, suddenly letting out a sigh. "And no change in his condition yet," he answered before Haru could even ask.

They had been in that damnable waiting room all afternoon and evening; Kazuma had been phoned by Shigure before Hatori had arrived to pick them up at the house. He had been in the middle of a class when the call came, and fortunately Kunimitsu was capable of closing the dojo by himself; Kazuma had managed to make it to the hospital before any of the others.

The news hadn't been specifically good or bad - it was simply too early to tell which way it would go. Or so the doctors had said about seven hours ago. A few broken and bruised bones, minor scrapes and cuts and one nasty gash across his nose had been the least of his injuries. No one had any doubt that Kyou could pull through that kind of damage; but the harm done internally was another story.

From what Haru could glean in between the medical jargon, the real trouble had come from one of Kyou's broken ribs. Upon slamming into the asphalt after the police car had collided with him, one of Kyou's ribs had broken cleanly - and had punctured a lung, allowing his precious lifeblood to seep into it and nearly drown him from the inside.

It had to be said that it was at least fortunate (as fortunate as one could be in this situation) for Kyou that he had been hit by a police car, as the reaction time and subsequent high speed race to the hospital were only brought about all the more quickly for it. In spite of the quick arrival and emergency surgery, a drowning mind will still begin to shut down from the lack of oxygen. Kyou was no exception to this biological fact and even now remained unconscious, wavering in that dangerous place between stabilizing and never waking up.

Hatori had gone back to the Sohma estate after being fully informed by the doctors, as it was his duty to inform Akito of the events. Oddly enough, or so thought those who knew Akito, the family doctor had been sent back to the hospital to wait for news with everyone else. The head of the Sohma family didn't trust Shigure with all the details - or so was the reason Hatori had given upon his return.

Haru looked down at Tohru once more. As loathe as he was to wake her, his foot was asleep and he was getting cramped from sleeping while sitting up.

She might have been the one taking it the hardest, even more so than Kazuma. Of course, she had seen it all before and had more than just the present situation to deal with - which was part of the reason Haru was so loathe to disturb her.

"Here," Kazuma's kind, quiet voice came again. He held out one of the standard issue hospital pillows to the boy, who carefully let it take his place. Tohru mumbled something in her sleep but gave no sign of waking, for which Haru was extremely grateful. He stood up, feeling his knees creaking faintly from staying bent in one position for so long, and gave a great stretch that popped joints he didn't even know he had.

"Thanks, you're a lifesaver," he yawned to the man standing before him. He knew Kazuma wouldn't have let himself have even a quick nap while Kyou was in such an unstable condition, and felt a pang of worry for the man.

"Not at all," he replied. His voice lacked the spark of life and love it usually carried, almost like it was dead. It disturbed something in Haru, mostly because he knew there wasn't anything he could say to make the man feel any better.

"What time is it?" he asked, opting to speak normally instead of giving voice to the thoughts running through his head.

"A little after nine-thirty." Kazuma rubbed his tired eyes. The perpetual florescent lighting of hospitals tended to give him the impression that time stood still; all hours looked the same in the waiting room.

"…I'm hungry…" Haru said blankly, feeling his stomach protesting at his neglect of it.

A wry smile ghosted across Kazuma's face at that. "You do seem to have skipped lunch and dinner--" and his own stomach took this opportunity to sympathize with Haru's. "…And I suppose I have as well."

"I only had the snacks that Honda-san made for me while I was waiting for…Kyou…" Haru looked away. He had been trying to _avoid_ bringing up his name, and yet with the first real sentence out of his mouth…

"You were waiting for him at Shigure's, were you?" Kazuma asked, an odd tone finally coloring his voice. It sounded almost…stern, but uneven, like it had to be forced.

Haru hesitated a bit before answering. "Yeah. I…I wanted to talk to him."

The moment of tension was suddenly dispelled by the first genuine (albeit faint) smile Kazuma had given all day - and it was directed at Haru. The boy blinked as though waiting for an explanation, but only received a clap on the back as the man walked past.

"Come on, I'll buy you dinner," he said, already heading for the elevators.

Haru blinked again, looking around the waiting room at his family members and Tohru, who still slept on relatively peacefully. He ran a hand through his hair before jogging to catch up with Kazuma.

_'I don't know exactly what's going on or what's changed, but…I am hungry.'_

------

Kyou opened his eyes, only to be met with the same darkness he had been in when they were closed. He tried to summon his arm up to rub across his eyes, but to his surprise nothing happened.

_'What…what's wrong with me? Where am I?' _He tried to speak the words aloud, but found he had no voice either. An ache throbbed at the back of his head, and he had the nagging thought that it was trying to remind him of something.

He blinked furiously - or hoped he did, as he was unable to even verify the feel of his eyelids working. _'Am I…blind?' _The question rose with a feeling of panic that quickly began to consume him.

As though to answer his silent query, the world suddenly burst into a light so strong he had to clamp his eyes shut against it. _'I guess that means no…' _he thought, squinting.

The brightness faded away to reveal a clear spring morning. A light breeze blew over his face, and he suddenly felt himself become aware of his body. He looked down, running his fingers lightly over his limbs as though to make sure they were actually there. Once satisfied, he took in his surroundings.

He was on the crest of a rolling hill covered in tall grasses that swayed with the wind; a small summer home was nestled at the bottom of the hill, surrounded by cherry trees. He watched the cherry blossoms falling steadily to the earth around the little house, almost hypnotized by the sight. It wasn't as though he had never seen cherry blossoms falling before, far from it; but something about this scene ensnared all of his focus and refused to let him take his eyes off it.

Voices drifted up to him, carried on the wind; voices so soft and indistinct that he couldn't tell if they came from men, women, or children, or some combination of all three. All he knew for sure was that there were people down in that house, and that something was pulling at his mind - something like that throbbing at the back of his head, something that was telling him to make that connection to his memories.

He didn't recall making a move, but suddenly he was heading down the hill and closing in on the backyard of the house. A sound in the distance drew his attention to the little dirt road that he could see led to the front of the house - a polished black car was making its way along the curving path, kicking up a faint cloud of dust behind it. He stopped in his tracks and watched its approach.

Two figures exited the front seats of the car after it stopped just shy of the driveway; the driver made his way around the front of the vehicle leisurely while the other quickly moved to open the door to the backseat. A third figure emerged from the back - a slight, small person, dressed in long dark clothes completely unsuited for the weather. Kyou felt a sharper tug at his mind as he watched the three cross the rest of the way to the front drive, until they were blocked from his sight by the house due to his position halfway down the hill.

His eyebrows lowered in a serious stare. _'Just what is this place? Why am I here, seeing this? What am I supposed to see?_' His questions went unanswered, but his legs were tugged into motion once again instead. His eyes never moved from the house, and the cherry blossoms continued to fall silently.

When his feet touched bare earth, he had finally reached the outer edge of the house's back garden. He spotted a small bench below one of the larger cherry trees; just when he was thinking how peaceful sitting in a place like that in a garden like this would be, he noticed that the bench was occupied.

A small child sat in the shade, staring at the tiny pink petals that littered the ground. His feet swung listlessly, too short to reach the earth below him. But what Kyou found odd about the young boy was that he wore a dark hooded sweatshirt - with the hood up, and drawn tightly around his face. Even though he wore shorts to accommodate the fine weather, such a state of dress could only be suffocating.

Kyou walked over to the bench, making sure to scuff his feet along the ground to announce his presence with fair warning. The boy didn't move, or even make a sound.

Kyou stared for a few moments before yielding the first move. "This seat taken?" he said aloud, only mildly surprised he could finally speak. The boy didn't answer, much to his annoyance. _'That's a good enough invitation for me,_' he thought with only a minimal amount of spite, and he plopped down on the far side of the bench.

They sat in silence for quite some time, the faint murmurs of those that remained inside and behind closed doors making their way out to them as a form of steady background noise. Kyou leaned back and looked up at the tree above them, wondering vaguely if this kid could even see and hear him.

"Why are you here?" the small voice came, muffled by the hood.

Kyou looked back over at the kid, somehow glad to find out he wasn't some ghost haunting an unsuspecting family and invisible to the world. "Why are you wearing that thing in this weather?"

"I asked you first," came the reply, somewhat sulkily.

"Actually you never answered my first question, so _I_ asked first," Kyou countered, crossing his arms over his chest. "So spill it."

"Hmph!" the kid let out, assuming an identical position and crossing his own arms. "I don't have to tell you anything!"

Kyou glared, not that it was witnessed by anybody. But he figured he shouldn't be getting on some strange kid's bad side, especially presuming his parents were only a few dozen feet away in the house and might think the worst of the situation. "Fine, fine; I'll get going then," he said, standing up.

"H-hey, wait!" A tiny hand shot out, catching hold of the hem of Kyou's shirt. He twisted around to look back in surprise at the sudden movement, just as the child's hood fell back from his face - and they both froze.

Red eyes locked onto the same red, then roved over the same orange hair, the same face that had always greeted him in the mirror. He suddenly shot his eyes down to the hand that still gripped his shirt; the sleeve of the dark sweatshirt had come up, revealing the familiar set of red and white beads wrapped securely around the child's wrist…

Suddenly the wind picked up violently, the voices from inside swirling about as madly as the falling cherry blossoms.

_"You are a worthless fool."_

_"We didn't come all the way here…"_

_"I WON'T ALLOW IT!"_

_"Please don't see him…"_

_"It's not my fault!"_

_"I never asked for this!"_

_"You cannot deny such a simple request."_

_"What have I done…"_

_"You might as well just…**kill yourself**."_

Suddenly the earth dropped out from beneath Kyou's feet; instinctively, he pushed the child as hard as he could before he could be swallowed up as well. And he fell, surrounded by drifting cherry blossoms and dark.

------

The hospital's cafeteria was almost entirely empty at that hour, save for the night kitchen staff (all of two people) and a lone man sitting at a far table with a cup of coffee in his hands. Haru watched the circles of florescent light reflected in the white laminated flooring as they moved to the display counter.

"Looks like we're too late to get anything fresh," Kazuma noted with some disappointment. "But I suppose that's to be expected. There's a decent selection from the display items though; pick anything you'd like, Hatsuharu."

Haru nodded and turned his attention to the glass display case. Half-empty rows of pre-made sandwiches and pre-cut desserts all wrapped in plastic were bathed in a dull bluish light - Haru wondered if there was anything more depressing than a hospital cafeteria at night.

Once they had gotten their food and drinks from the cashier, they settled into sturdy plastic and metal chairs at a table against the windows - though the blinds had been drawn hours ago and the only view they had was of the thin white plates now covering the glass.

They talked while they ate slowly, almost as though the circumstances leading up to this meal were normal, everyday occurrences. Haru wondered whether or not his old martial arts master was the kind of person who just needed to be treated normally when going through a crisis. Not one to deny a man his defense mechanisms, he obliged in doing his part in keeping Kazuma's mind from driving himself crazy with worry.

"So…" Kazuma said after pausing to sip at his drink. He tapped the sides of the can with his fingertips in what Haru could clearly identify as a nervous gesture. The boy braced ever so slightly, wondering what the man sitting across from him was about to ask that required mental preparation.

Kazuma coughed lightly into his hand before diving in. "So…you mentioned that you were waiting for Kyou to arrive at Shigure's house when…when this all happened?"

Haru took his gaze from the man's now steady fingers and met his curious gaze. He nodded, getting an inkling as to where this was headed, but unsure of the exact motives behind the line of questioning.

"Ah…and, uh…was there anything in particular you had wanted to talk to him about?" Kazuma asked, shifting slightly in his chair to better face Haru.

Haru nodded again and stared at the now empty sandwich wrapper in front of him. "Yeah."

_'Direct questions, Kazuma, he answers _direct_ questions,' _the man had to remind himself. "I see…he did bring up a certain, ah - _incident_ with me when he was at my house last night. Was that what you were going to talk to him about?"

"If you mean the incident where we ended up kissing in his room, then yes," Haru replied, killing the last of his drink in one swig.

"Ah…y-yes, that was what I was referring to…" Kazuma said, somewhat flustered. The situation was just too peculiar to him; he had trained Haru since he was a small child, had watched him grow over the years along with Kyou. To think of the two of them being in any way involved…_romantically_…well, Kazuma didn't actually know _what_ to think of that.

But that was the purpose of having this conversation with Haru - to help figure out those things he didn't know. He didn't know how Kyou felt towards the other boy (hell, even Kyou himself didn't know that), but he felt sure that Haru would know how he felt towards Kyou.

Still, Kazuma had never imagined he would have to ask his former student what his intentions were to Kyou, and he felt more than a little ridiculous for it.

He suddenly realized the boy was watching him and smiled weakly. "Kyou told me about it after dinner last night…"

"Is he still mad at me?" Haru asked flatly.

Kazuma let out a faint chuckle. "He certainly was letting off a good amount of steam for a while. But he would know the answer to that better than I… All I can say for certain is that when he left my house this morning, he left with the intention of discussing the issue with you in the near future. I'm sure he would have been quite surprised to find you waiting for him," he finished with a small sigh and a sad smile.

Haru blinked at this news; Kyou had wanted to talk things out? Willingly? _'I really did snap something in his head,_' he thought with some concern.

"Ah, here you are; I've been looking everywhere for you two," a tired voice said from the double doors of the cafeteria.

The two sitting at the table turned to watch Shigure approach them with a yawn. "Did something happen?" Kazuma asked, Kyou's emergency coming back to the forefront of his mind with a vengeance.

"I'll say," Shigure said, suddenly smiling. "Kyou-kun woke up."

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**Author's Note:** AHHH YAY! ff dot net just would NOT let me upload anything for nearly two days. x.x

I'm reeeeally sorry for the long wait; I honestly never thought it would take this long to get my chapter out. First I had to deal with some light writer's block (I know what's going to happen in the story, I just couldn't write it out well enough; this is actually the second version of this chapter), then a bad cold, then a huge beta job...and yeah. This chapter caused me no end of grief, honestly.

Did you have fun wandering through Kyou-kun's subconscious? I always knew he secretly liked flowers. See? See? Kyou's not dead! No smiting.


	10. Chapter 10

Shigure trailed after a hurried Kazuma and Haru with a sigh. "All this running back and forth, and I still have yet to get any sleep! Really, and I just came this way not half a minute ago…" he lamented, his pout virtually audible.

"We'll go on ahead, Sensei," Haru waved from the elevators down the hall.

Shigure looked up and blinked in bemusement; those two really _were_ in a hurry. "Fine, fine; I'll catch the next one," he called, waving back as the elevator doors slid shut.

Silence fell upon the two in the elevator, which was blissfully devoid of any horrid music. Haru couldn't help but steal glances at the man standing next to him. It was odd, he thought; when things had been so uncertain regarding Kyou's condition, Kazuma had kept quite calm and patient. Now that he knew Kyou was out of danger, he could not stop fidgeting and worrying everything from his bottom lip to his shirt sleeve. It was like the dam holding back all of his worries had broken in one huge flood of relief, slipping past his control. Haru couldn't help feeling relieved as well, seeing the martial arts master coming back to himself.

Finally the electric doors opened onto Kyou's floor, and Kazuma rushed to the waiting room with Haru close behind.

"Ah, Kazuma; a moment, please," Hatori's cool voice called the man to a halt.

Kazuma watched the younger man approach anxiously. "Is he…can I…?"

"The staff here have agreed to overlook the breach in visiting hour regulations, though it took a bit of persuading," the Sohma family doctor said, sticking a hand into his pocket. "Honda-san is in there with him at the moment. We felt it appropriate to give them a moment alone."

"I…I see…" Kazuma replied, looking slightly dazed. He sank into one of the waiting room chairs and slowly bent forward to cradle his head in his hands, willing them to stop shaking. Hatori politely looked the other way, his eyes unwittingly meeting Haru's as the boy finally meandered closer to join them.

"Is Kyou going to be alright?" Haru asked quietly, since Kazuma didn't seem to be able to.

"He's going to be off his feet for a while, and he'll have to abstain from any vigorous activities for even longer; but the emergency surgery was successful, and he will make a full recovery from his injuries." Hatori indulged in a small sigh. "I think what we have to worry about the most is trying to keep him from training while covered in casts and stitches."

Kazuma had released his head at the news, though his eyes remained on the floor. He felt too relieved, too grateful that Kyou would be alright to speak or even crack a smile at the other man's jibe. He suddenly took a deep breath, getting to his feet and gathering his wits. "How long has Tohru-san been with him?" he asked softly.

Hatori glanced at his wristwatch. "About ten minutes; apparently it took Shigure quite some time to find you."

"Apparently it's taking him quite some time to get back…" Haru observed, glancing toward the elevators.

Hatori's eyebrow gave a twitch as Shigure's line a few hours ago, promoting the excessive 'book research' he could accomplish with the nightshift nurses, came back to him.

"I guess it'd be pretty easy for him to get distracted here," Haru continued at Hatori's disgusted silence. "Though I thought he liked high school girls better."

Hatori only grunted tersely, lifting two fingers to rub at his temple. "…He had to have been joking about finding night nurses for book research…"

"Hm…well it makes sense to _me_. But not even you know when to take him seriously?" Haru asked.

"I think between you and Ayame I take enough of the idiots off everyone's hands," Hatori frowned, then blinked at the empty space that had once been occupied by Kazuma; he had already slipped away.

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Tohru had sat in silence for a good five minutes before Kyou finally decided to feign a fit of coughing to get her to say or do anything; a slightly underhanded trick, perhaps, but effective nonetheless. He didn't like that silence. It seemed heavy with something he couldn't quite put his finger on, but it was nothing good.

"A-are you alright, Kyou-kun?" Tohru asked, voice somewhat higher in her panic. She had been on edge since entering the room, really, most likely from seeing Kyou's right arm in a cast and the rest of him in braces and bandages. "Here, here's water!" She quickly poured some from the pitcher that sat on the bedside table into one of the provided disposable cups and gently held it to Kyou's lips.

He sipped slowly, noting the tremble of her hands as they neared his bandaged face. When he was finished, he stared at her for a moment in silence. "I'm going to be fine, Tohru," he said, his voice hoarse and rather foreign even to his own ears. "I'm not that fragile, so stop looking like this is gonna be the last time you'll see me."

Tohru only turned her face away at that, eyes downcast. "I…I know, Kyou-kun. It's not that… I…I-I'm sorry, Kyou-kun…"

Kyou only waited for her to finish, too exhausted to do much arguing. But she never got the chance to elaborate, as a soft knock came at the door before it opened to allow Kazuma's head to poke in. "I hope I'm not interrupting anything…?"

"N-no, of course not!" Tohru said, forcing a smile onto her face. "Shishou-san, please come in! I…I was just going to get myself something to drink from the vending machine, so…" She crossed the room as Kazuma stepped out of the doorway.

"I'll be out in the waiting room; Kyou-kun, I…I'm glad you're okay…" she trailed off, then stepped out into the hallway and shut the door behind her.

Kazuma blinked at the door for a second before turning to face his foster son, deciding not to ask about Tohru's hasty exit. He padded silently over to the boy's bedside, dragging one of the extra chairs along with him and setting himself down in it. He trailed his gaze over the damage; he had wanted to hurry and talk to Kyou, but now faced with the boy he found himself at a loss for words.

"…Is there some cat wandering around with all your tongues today or something?" Kyou rasped.

Kazuma gave a small smile. "I guess you could say that there is, though the 'wandering around' part isn't exactly true at the moment."

"Ha ha," Kyou replied stoically. "If my arm wasn't currently strapped to my side, I'd punch you for that one."

"I'll let you have a freebie when the cast comes off, then," his Shishou said. Suddenly he stretched out his arm and touched his hand to Kyou's forehead, about the only place on the boy's face completely free of bandages or gauze. He couldn't help it; he had to reassure himself that this was real, not some hopeful dream he would wake up from to find himself still in that cold waiting room.

Kyou's eyes slid closed at the comforting gesture, almost against his will. He didn't want to be lulled into sleep yet, not when Shishou was finally here with him. Though he had been glad Tohru had come rushing to his side after waking, that strange and heavy feeling had quickly clouded her relief and had left Kyou almost preferring solitude. But with Shishou, he couldn't help but feel at peace.

The warm hand slowly drew away from his forehead, and he snapped his eyes open. The nurse on duty had told him he'd been unconscious all day, and he was afraid falling asleep so soon after coming to might let him slip away again. He focused all his attention on the man settling back into his chair at his side.

"You…sound kind of hoarse, Kyou," he said softly. "Do you need some water?"

Kyou tried to shake his head until he realized how doing so made his head spin. "No, I'm fine. You'd sound like a frog too if you had a tube stuck down your throat during surgery," he said wryly.

"I suppose you've got a point there," Shishou replied, the ghost of a grimace coming over his face. "Are you in any pain?"

"Not really," Kyou said. "They've got some pain killers in this IV bag, but some things just feel kind of…off."

"You look like you could use some sleep."

This time Kyou shook his head in spite of the dizziness. "I've been out for eight hours, at least; sleep is the last thing I need any more of."

Shishou smiled gently, seeing through the bravado. "You'll be fine, Kyou. It'll just be ordinary sleep this time."

The injured boy didn't have anything to say to that; since it came from Shishou, he found himself reassured. But he still didn't want to go to sleep quite yet. "Tohru mentioned something about 'others' being here when she came in. I'm assuming she meant you, but that doesn't account for the plural…"

"Shigure and Hatori are here, too…as is Hatsuharu," he added the last name hesitantly.

Kyou blinked up at the ceiling. "That's an odd gathering for something like this…they're still here? All of them?"

"Yes, they're in the waiting room as we speak." Kazuma watched the boy for any reaction in regards to Haru's presence.

Kyou's mind, of course, had stuck on the fact that _Haru was here_. Tohru and Shishou being there was a given, and he supposed the two other men had aided in transportation; but Haru? Kyou began chewing slowly on his bottom lip, an unconscious gesture that did not escape the notice of the man beside him.

"He told me he was waiting for you at Shigure's house," the dark-haired man continued. "He said he wanted to talk to you about…what happened."

Kyou's exposed fingers twitched in his cast. Undoubtedly, he would be clenching his fist right now if he could. In spite of the fact that talking to Haru had been the goal, he couldn't stop the feeling of panic starting to bubble and churn in his stomach - he thought he wouldn't have to face him for at least another two days! _'More, if possible,' _he thought despondently.

"…You don't have to see him if you don't want to," Kazuma said quietly. "You _are_ the person in control of who can enter your room, excepting the medical staff."

"Knowing that idiot, he'd just come in through the window - even if it _is_ on the fourth floor," Kyou retorted, coughing lightly.

Kazuma chuckled and set about pouring Kyou a new cup of water. "He does have a stubborn streak on par with yours, after all."

"I resent that."

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A silence had fallen between Haru and Hatori after they had realized that Kazuma was gone. Hatori eased himself into a nearby chair, though Haru remained standing.

"…Have you seen him yet?" the boy asked suddenly.

"Not while he was awake," Hatori replied, sliding his eyes shut and rubbing at them with his thumb and forefinger. "As his family doctor, I was allowed to look him over after the emergency had passed."

"Oh." Haru glanced towards the elevators again; still no sign of Shigure, the little lost puppy. "Is it okay if I go see him?"

"Why don't you ask him yourself? He is awake, after all," the older man replied. He silently cursed the numerous **NO SMOKING **signs decking the walls; he could really use a cigarette right about now.

Haru hesitated a little, a signal that caught Hatori's attention. "I…don't want to aggravate his condition," the cow said, staring at a corner of the wall opposite him.

Hatori couldn't suppress the snort of laughter brought on by that. "You must have done quite a number on him at school yesterday if the mere _sight_ of you would be enough to endanger his health. Even if you do manage to give him nightmares on any other day, his medication will certainly take care of that here."

"Ha'ri gets mean when he's off the nicotine," Haru muttered just loud enough for the man to hear.

"Ha'ri needs nicotine to get through days surrounded by this kind of family," the man mimicked, beginning to feel around in his pockets for his smokes and a lighter. "My point is, Kyou's not going to die if you go in there and say, 'Mind if I come in?' And he's too incapacitated to throw _anything_ your way, let alone punches, so you don't have to worry about suffering bodily harm for your trouble."

Haru couldn't think of anything to say to that, though he did feel more convinced. He watched Hatori stand to fish out a lighter from his coat pocket and stick a cigarette between his lips.

"I'll be on the balcony; if Shigure comes back before you manage to get into Kyou's room, don't let him know where I am." And with that, Hatori strode down the dim hallway to where thick glass doors led to a heavily-fenced balcony that ran along that one side of the hospital.

Left without any distractions, Haru plopped himself down on the chair the man had just vacated and stared at the floor. Even if Hatori was right and Haru went in to see Kyou, what could he say now? He hadn't known what he would say to him before this car accident, but now… What if, even now, Kyou would only look on Haru with anger and disgust? Even now, sitting broken on the impersonal hospital bed, would he shut Haru out with that horrible look of hatred? He brought his knees up onto the seat at the thought, wrapping his arms loosely around them.

Haru did not care what other people thought of him. He had learned when he was still very young not to listen to what other people said about him. But Kyou was not 'other people'. Kyou was important. He _liked_ Kyou. He had _always_ liked Kyou. Back when they were in training together, before Yuki had come around, Haru had gotten to know Kyou little by little. Even back then he had admired the cat's fire, his passion to prove himself.

Kyou had been one of the first people who didn't ridicule him for being something he wasn't - he'd only ridiculed him for what he was. Taunts of 'You suck!' and 'Don't get yourself lost on the way out!' had flowed from the young cat almost continuously, but Haru never really minded it. It was true; Kyou was better at martial arts than he, and he _had_ had to help him find the bathroom almost every day. If Yuki had been Haru's first love, then Kyou had been his first friend.

And Haru had abandoned him.

When Yuki gave him those words to find the courage to be himself, he had needed to vent anger in the dojo less and less often. He saw Kyou less and less often, and he didn't bother to make much of an effort to stay in contact - he was too busy tailing after Yuki, his new obsession.

Years had passed since then, years where their friendship was reduced to the yearly greeting at the Sohma New Year's gathering. They had been thrown together a lot in the past year (and quite literally lately), yes; but frankly, Haru couldn't blame Kyou for hating him now.

He was suddenly snapped out of his reverie by the soft scuffle of shoes on the polished floor of the hallway that opened up into the waiting room. He looked up and saw Tohru slowly making her way back from Kyou's room. She looked deep in thought, and not a little bit sad. By the time she entered the waiting room, she still had not noticed Haru's presence.

"How is he?" Haru spoke up after waiting a minute for her to look up.

Tohru gave a start, snapping her head up and staring wide-eyed around the room. She relaxed as her eyes landed on Haru, and she gave an apologetic smile. "S-sorry…I guess I was spacing out a little," she said, moving forward to take a seat by the boy. "He seems…he seems well enough, considering… Well, Shishou-san is in there with him now," she finished lamely.

"Yeah, Shigure came to tell us that Kyou was awake," Haru continued, aware that the subject was difficult for the girl next to him. "The doctors said there was a risk of brain damage…did he seem…different to you? Did he say anything?"

Tohru nodded, staring at a spot on the floor in front of her. "Yes, we were talking for a bit…but he didn't seem different. Just…tired." She suddenly gave a small smile. "He seemed to be quite himself, actually."

Haru wondered if that was a good thing, mostly for his own sake. "So he was pretty okay, then."

Tohru nodded again.

"So what's there to be sad about?"

Tohru sat frozen, eyes staring blankly at that spot on the floor. Haru was mildly disturbed to see the normally bright and cheery girl in such a state - but that was why he was asking, wasn't it?

Tohru, meanwhile, was not thinking of how to respond. Her mind was not racing; no, her internal battle was far less complicated, and yet so much more difficult. It wasn't the problem itself that held her tongue - it was simply the decision to admit to someone else that the problem existed. Tohru didn't _have_ problems; she could get along just fine as she was, no need for her friends to worry about something that doesn't need fixing.

Not a day went by where she didn't have to forcibly tell herself that.

_'But isn't everyone worrying anyway?' _a tiny voice said from the darkest corner of her mind. It was true; even Kyou, who had suffered serious bodily damage, a blow to the head, and was under god-knew-what kinds of medication, had noticed something was seriously off with her. Every time something bad happened, even after it turned out okay, it became harder and harder to keep up her smiling façade.

_'Aren't you tired of pretending?' _the voice whispered. _'Aren't you sick of being a hypocrite?'_

And suddenly, Tohru _was _sick and tired. She leaned forward in her chair, nearly putting her head between her knees. Maybe it wasn't so difficult after all, to open the lid of that box that hid away her darkest feelings, to finally let them go…

She felt a light touch on her shoulder that alerted her to Haru's forgotten presence. She felt deflated by such a small thing, and allowed the hand to keep her grounded while she began to talk in a whisper so faint Haru had to lean forward himself to catch her words.

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**Author's Note:** Yo. God this is a lot of angst. I'm just gonna change the "General" part of the genre to "Angst." If I remember. I hereby promise that my next fic will be nothing but crack. I have no idea what kind of fic it will be or what fandom, but it's gonna be crack, dammit.

Yes, next chapter will be Tohru's confession. It's about time she tells someone, right? And if things go well, Haru will finally get to visit our crippled cat. I hope y'all don't hate me for ending it here, but the chapter was going to be too long if I didn't. With all the cliffies I give you, I've learned to put my author's notes at the end of the chapters. >.o

Oh yes, and thank you all so much for your wonderful reviews! I hope I don't disappoint.


	11. Chapter 11

**Author's Note:** Lord I hope this works. Fate must be having one hell of a laugh at me, killing this blasted website's upload feature the night I finished my first update for this story since last May.

Um...I can't blame you if you need to go back and reread a lot. I thought of doing a summary, but who ever reads the author's notes? (Especially after this long of a gap between updates? Well you should!) To get to the point, real life is a bitch that enjoys getting in the way. I actually started writing this story (and all my others) because I had just quit my hellhole job and had loads of time and liberty on my hands. Naturally that came to an end, and this is the result. Please look on it kindly. ;;

I'd dearly love to thank EVERYONE who reviewed personally, and I did have a few picked out to do so, but unfortunately I can't get another tab/page up while this is working and if I navigate away from this page I might just lose everything I spent the last forty minutes exporting/cutting/copying/pasting/formatting. Just know that if you read, poked at, and/or reviewed any part of this story you have my eternal fangirly love.

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OKAY, THIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE TO TURN BACK WITHOUT SEEING SPOILERS IF YOU NEED TO REREAD PREVIOUS CHAPTERS. Sorry if you do have to resort to that, but if it makes you feel any better, I did too before I could start writing this. Just be warned, it picks up _right_ where it left off. Okay, GO!

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"I… I love Kyou-kun."

Haru blinked and remained silent. Then he blinked again. Was this really what she had been tearing her insides apart for? Something so… well, obvious? "Honda-san, that's…not exactly news…"

But Tohru adamantly shook her head, in spite of her faint blush. "No…no, it's…different."

"…What do you mean?" the boy replied, not bothering to hide his confusion.

Tohru bit her lip, still staring absently at the gleaming floor. "I…I've been thinking a lot…lately…about Kyou-kun. And Mom. And…and about today.

_'Uh oh.'_ This was a tricky direction in conversation, to say the least. But over the time he had come to know the slight and energetic Honda girl, he had been able to see what he had seen in Yuki - a deep-rooted uncertainty, a carefully guarded insecurity wrapped in memories, kept far from the surface and even farther from others. This was important to her.

"Ah," was all he said aloud.

It was enough, though, and Tohru went on.

"I know it… it seemed like Kyou-kun and I… that is, we were…." she paused, heaved a breath in mild frustration. "I loved him. Love. I… I wanted to _be_ with him."

"Want_ed_." Haru repeated, stressing the last syllable. The strangely serious girl beside him nodded slowly.

"…I don't want that. Not anymore."

A heavy silence fell between them. Tohru simply refused to raise her head, and Haru slipped off into space as he wondered at the implications of this bit of news. Oddly, the only real thought running through his head was _'…Poor Kyou…'_

Finally the bewildered bovine returned to his senses enough to pose a question. "…Why, Honda-san?"

Tohru remained perfectly still for a minute, thinking over her words. "It…isn't fair to Kyou-kun, in the end." She didn't have to look up to know that Haru was sending a questioning look her way; she was grateful that he chose to remain silent.

"I have amazing friends, Hatsuharu-san – I know that. And…not one day goes by that I don't give my thanks for having them around. But nothing… no matter how wonderful they are, I… I just can't seem to be satisfied with that.

"When Mom died… I lost the biggest part of my life. She– she was everything to me…" Tohru's voice faltered and her hands clenched on her knees, wrinkling the fabric of her skirt as she attempted to regain control of her emotions. "E-Even though Uo-chan and Hana-chan lost her too, they still spent every day making sure I was okay, that I wasn't sad. I… I felt I had to smile for them, because they tried so hard for my sake. I couldn't tell them that I was… that it felt like I was disappearing without her."

Haru watched as Tohru moved one of her clenched hands to press against her chest, where her heart lay. "It's still there, even today," she said in a sudden monotone. "The hole."

"…'The hole?'" Haru repeated.

Tohru nodded; she had hunched herself over the fist that was still clenched to her heart, her half-lidded eyes trained to the floor. "I know it's been more than a year… I just can't get rid of it. E-Everyone tells me how well I'm doing, and wonder how I can be so cheerful after she died… They don't get it…."

Haru blinked at the girl beside him, the gentleness in his eyes going unseen. "Don't get what?" he asked quietly.

Tohru's frame remained frozen in place, her long hair falling about her shoulders like a shroud. Her tone echoed the hush that had settled over her mind: "…That doing this, being this way… it's all I can do. I don't know how else to keep that hole from swallowing me up, or from taking everyone around me with it."

Haru shifted a bit before sitting back against his chair. It gave him a moment to think.

He'd dealt with the danger of being consumed by emotions, and not just his own. He had come to expect that just about everybody he came across had some kind of darkness within them, something that blacked out the edges of their vision no matter what they were looking at. After all, he had a side that most people would rather not see; if even _he_ had it, surely everyone else did too. He didn't imagine that he was so special that he had anything one couldn't find in anyone else – the ability to transform into droopy-eyed livestock aside.

Even so, finding it to be so great in Tohru Honda was a bit distressing, though thinking about it left Haru feeling little in the way of surprise. What she was saying made sense to him. _'Maybe that's why she's telling me of all people.'_ He shrugged inwardly.

"Then you know you have people who would want to help you if you asked," he finally said.

"I do know," Tohru replied softly to her knees. "I know they'd try their best, like they always do – just like I know it wouldn't be enough for me, like I know I really don't deserve their efforts."

Haru paused; he knew the rules of etiquette as well as any other Japanese, but he got the feeling that this girl wasn't just being modest. "That's not true, Honda-san–"

"I'm not saying that I'm w-worthless," she interrupted, her free hand clenching at the fabric over her knee. "I r-really don't deserve them. After what I've done to them…"

"What have you done to them?" Haru was almost worrying for Tohru's sanity at this point. Didn't she know how many lives she had bettered in just his family alone?

"I've… used them. I've tried to fill that hole with friends, even knowing that it could never work. Uo-chan and Hana-chan tried so hard to h-help me, even though they lost Mom too, and still even now… I still act like I'm the only one suffering, like no one feels it the way I do."

Haru felt like sighing; was everybody broken these days, or what? "No one probably does feel it the way you do, Honda-san. She was your mother. No one can take a mother's place."

"I know that," she said. "I knew it all along, but I still tried to take so much from my friends." And with a quiet _pat! pat!_, two drops fell from behind her curtain of hair to make small dark spots on her skirt. "W-what's worst of all is what I've been doing to K-Kyou-kun."

"What, making him happy?" Haru said without sarcasm.

Tohru just shook her head as a few more droplets joined the others already staining her clothes. Haru couldn't have known he was just making her feel guiltier. "I don't r-really know how to put it into words. I never imagined this would happen when I first came to live with them all…"

Suddenly Tohru raised her head, straightening her body just long enough to draw her legs up onto the chair. She eased her arms around her knees and rested her chin on whatever was now topping the tangle of limbs. She stared at the floor.

"Have you ever lost someone important to you, Hatsuharu-san?"

Images of Rin immediately flashed through his mind. He blinked them away. "I think so."

"How are you… the way you are, then?"

He shrugged a shoulder. "If I really can't get them back, I guess I just focus on what I still have. It's a waste of time otherwise. Uh…" For once he wondered if he had said something he shouldn't have.

But Tohru only smiled wanly. "It is, isn't it. That's just it, though… I just can't focus on what I have. I mean, I can, and I do; I tell myself every day how lucky I am, how much I've got, how wonderful my friends are, how so many people would do anything to be in my shoes. But it doesn't matter how many times I say it to myself, or how hard I try to truly believe it. I'd still… I'd still…"

Haru was considering how to offer her some encouragement, but was surprised to see her furrow her brows fiercely and raise her voice to all but force the words out of the deepest, darkest recesses of her heart:

_"I'd still trade everything away in a heartbeat if it meant I could have just one more day with her!"_

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"…Shishou? Shishou."

Kazuma gave a slight start as Kyou's calls finally reached him. They had been speaking quietly together about everything and nothing, as they usually tended to do; but Kazuma had fallen into a silent reverence watching his foster son, bruised and broken but animated nonetheless – at least as far as the medication would allow.

He gave the boy a reassuring smile. "I'm sorry; what was that?"

Kyou made a questioning sound in the back of his throat as he stared at his Shishou in mock exasperation. "Really, sometimes I wonder how a guy with his head in the clouds so much of the time got to be Shishou of a dojo. You and Tohru are really two of a kind."

"Sorry, sorry," Kazuma replied with a soft laugh. "But I'm not the one who's been asleep half the day, after all. And at least Tohru-san is useful around the house."

"Yeah, if she learns how to fight she'll really give you a run for your money." Kyou said it with a smirk, but Kazuma caught the shadow that flickered behind his eyes.

"You're probably exhausted," he said, standing up from his chair. "I should let you get more rest before the nurses – or worse, Hatori-san – scold me for keeping you up."

"I don't care about them!" Kyou said, somewhat frantically. "Shishou, don't leave yet…"

Kazuma placed a hand gently over Kyou's. "You really do need rest; you need to let yourself heal, Kyou. And you look like you need to think about something, and all I will do is keep you from doing so."

Kyou's eyes pleaded before turning away from Kazuma's. His weakened hand twitched slightly; he wanted so much to simply be able to close it around that of Shishou's, to keep him there. "I know…" he said softly. "I don't want to think about it anymore."

Kazuma could feel his resolve to stop enabling Kyou to run away from his troubles dissipating at his son's bowed head. He did want Kyou to become strong enough to face these problems, so he could become strong enough to face his biggest problem someday before it actually came to pass. He needed Kyou to break free of the bonds that held him to Akito – to be strong enough to survive the break.

But all he saw before him was his precious little son, battered and breaking himself, and only asking him to stay.

He smiled inwardly, berating himself for being such a simpleton. He gave a little sigh, easing himself back into his chair. "Who am I to refuse such a simple request?"

------

Tohru looked surprised at her own outburst. Haru wondered what that made him look like in comparison. Then Tohru's tears came more readily, and he focused on the more important matter at hand.

She may have been crying harder, but her words came to her more easily. "Ha-Hatsuharu-san, I really am the worst. What kind of a person would think of their friends in such a way? I'm a horrible person, I know I am. I've known it this whole time, and yet I still dared to go so far as to fall in love with Kyou-kun! And to let him get so close to me, let him think…! When I can't… when I can't do anything about it…" She trailed off with a sniffle.

Haru went up to one of the many short tables spread throughout the room, and robbed it of its complimentary box of tissues. This he handed to Tohru upon returning to his chair, and while she attempted to regain some control over her face, he spoke. "You're not horrible, Honda-san – you're just human. I bet anyone who suffered a loss like yours would feel the same way. But why can't you do anything about… about Kyou?"

Tohru coughed a little and took in a shaky breath. "I thought… for the longest time I had thought of Kyou-kun as just another friend. But… I couldn't throw him away for another chance with Mom. No, I… it's much worse. I've already started putting him in her place. I started to put him in a space he could never fill, and then this… something this terrible happens to him! No, I can't do anything about Kyou… because I can't love anyone so much again.

"Making one person attempt to fill in your every need isn't love – it's not the kind of love I'd want for Kyou-kun. And – and that's what it'd be. I know if I really let myself go, the way he wants me to… he'd drown in it. That kind of need is one that can't be filled by anyone, no matter how hard they try. It can hide under love, but it makes it an unfair love. Having one person doing all the giving and the other doing all the taking… It's destructive. It hurts the one you're supposed to love, and yourself in the end. I couldn't do that to Kyou, and I can't let anyone else be my whole world ever again. I… I won't be able to survive losing someone else like that ever again."

Haru felt he had to interrupt. "Who says you'd lose Kyou? First of all, he doesn't exactly give up easily. Just look at his scorecard for fights against Yuki – _that_ seems pretty hopeless. And then just look at where we are. If he can survive getting hit by a car, I bet he'll be around for a while yet."

Finally, Tohru turned her head and locked eyes with the boy sitting so kindly beside her. Haru thought she looked like she was searching for something in his eyes. "I meant… Kyou might…" She bit her lip. _'He doesn't know that Kyou might be confined in the near future, does he? But…maybe if he did, he could help stop it…'_

She shook her head at his questioning gaze. "I, um…" She sighed a little. _'It's not really my business to tell, is it? Kyou-kun didn't even want me to know.'_

"Honda-san?"

"Ah," Tohru smiled thinly and dabbed at her eyes a final time, stretching out her legs once again as she did so. She stood up slowly and attempted to brush her skirt into some semblance of presentable form while Haru stood as well. She had something to think about. "I'm sorry, Hatsuharu-san, I guess I got a little carried away. Thank you for all your help." She bowed.

Haru bowed in return out of habit. "I don't think I was much help, but I hope you feel better…"

Tohru smiled again, this time a little more brightly. "You have been a great help. I just… I feel like I have a lot of things to catch up on. And I haven't eaten a thing since this morning, and Yuki-kun must be wondering where everyone is – ahh! Poor Yuki-kun! No one left him a note, and it's definitely past dinner time!" Genuine horror colored her face as she quickly said something about going to find Shigure-san and Hatori-san, and perhaps a phone.

Haru watched Tohru hurry off in the direction of the elevators. She looked a little wobbly, probably from cutting off the circulation to her legs for so long, but he thought she seemed at least a little bit less concerned with wearing her smile and more with letting it suit her.

They hadn't talked for more than twenty minutes, but it seemed that twenty minutes was all she really needed. Haru took a moment to marvel at people's tendency to come back to themselves simply by sharing their problems with someone, and then promptly got distracted by the flickering and subsequent death of one of the fluorescent lights above him. He suddenly realized that he was alone.

…And his head was starting to hurt.

_'My brain must be thinking without me again,'_ he said to himself. It was a familiar pain. People often called him slow, but he knew that at least one half of his brain could go faster than the other; he saw it as saving himself a lot of effort.

He sat in silence for a few minutes, too lazy to bother coming up with any conscious thoughts to keep the other half of his brain occupied. Eventually he started humming a song to fill the void; and eventually he realized that it was the same song he had been listening to while trying to figure out Kyou the other day. Suddenly the angry youth's face would not fade from his mind's eye. It made Haru itch.

As the blandly designed wall clock on the other side of the room ticked away the minutes, Haru felt himself getting more agitated degree by degree as thoughts of Kyou whirled through his mind. Well, not so much as 'whirl'; this was Hatsuharu Sohma, after all. Much like fallen leaves caught in a circular crosswind, Haru's thoughts were suddenly pulled into sporadic, lazy movements that really got them nowhere for all their effort.

Why was he still in this sterile waiting room? Everyone else had gone to far friendlier places, maybe even home – except for perhaps Hatori, who really had to drive him back home so hopefully he was just lurking somewhere outside with his cancer sticks – but he couldn't bring himself to leave. Haru had certain things set in his mind, ways the world worked for him and what he considered right and wrong. Whenever something or someone went against one of these certain things, he was left wondering why. He used to ask the people involved, but his habit of speaking bluntly and to the point quickly taught him to wonder on in silence – unless, of course, they asked him about it first. He vaguely wondered if that was why people tended to avoid asking him for advice.

But something just wasn't ringing right with him at the thought of leaving before seeing Kyou.

_'He doesn't want to see me,'_ he thought to himself. _'But… I want to see him.'_

He didn't want Kyou to hate him. Before, he wouldn't have really thought it possible for Kyou to hate him, so he had never worried about it. He had never worried about Kyou, period. He hadn't been like Yuki; Haru had never had the urge or desire to protect Kyou, simply because Kyou hadn't needed it.

_'Wouldn't have stood for it,'_ he corrected himself with a half smile. It faded quickly though, as his crosswind of thoughts died out yet again, leaving him back exactly where he had started:

So… what was keeping him here?

------

They had sat in comfortable silence for some time, and Kazuma was starting to wonder (hope) that Kyou had fallen asleep.

Truthfully, Kyou felt… well, rather like he had been struck by a vehicle. His body was aching – not with pain, but with the desire to shut down to the bare minimum of necessary body systems and just sleep for the next two weeks or so. But he feared what he would find waiting for him in his sleep; he didn't recall all the details of the dream that had kicked him back to consciousness, but the feeling it had left him with was enough to make him anxious about going back to sleep.

He blinked forcefully several times. He had to think of something to say! If he didn't, only one of two things could happen: he could fall asleep from the comfort of the silence, or Shishou would have an excuse to leave him alone and thus rob him of the only thing capable of keeping him awake.

He settled for having a sudden bout of coughing. Not by choice – but it served his purpose nonetheless, and Kazuma went about fussing with his pillows and offering him more water.

_'What the hell,'_ Kyou thought with a mental shrug, since physical ones were quite impossible at the moment, accepting the small Styrofoam cup. _'I never thought I could be grateful for a catheter bag.'_

------

Meanwhile, Haru had worked himself into the dead-leaves-in-a-crosswind version of a frenzy – which was probably something like a vigorous stir.

So what if Kyou would freak out if he went in to see him? So what if Haru _wanted _to see him? He was just as worried as anyone else (probably more so in, say, Shigure's case), and yet he was the only one who hadn't been able to look in on the boy. Plus, hadn't Kazuma said that Kyou had wanted to talk about what he'd been freaked out by this whole time? He had a reason (a _right!_) to see him…!

He suddenly found his irritation overwhelmed by a loud yawn. He glance at the clock on the wall again, this time noting the hour.

_'Five after eleven,'_ he mused. _'Maybe Ha'ri really did go home.'_

He got up from his seat and stretched, lengthening his entire body rather impressively. After the satisfying chorus of cracks from his spine, his feet started moving. He looked around absently, not really taking in the tired scenery.

It wasn't until he was in front of the familiar and forbidding fake maple door that guarded Kyou's room that he took stock of what was happening. He knocked softly.

------

They had somehow gotten on the subject of Kazuma's early training days, back when he had been Kyou's age. He had had to leave a lot of things out, as he wasn't sure how well Kyou's body was up to a good guffaw at the moment.

"Ah, it's gotten so late," he remarked, getting up from his bedside seat. "I hope that's not an irate nurse out for my blood for keeping you from properly resting. Yes, I'm coming."

He opened the door, excuses for staying so late at the tip of his tongue, until he noticed who was on the outside. "Oh, Hatsuharu."

The bed sheets rustled softly as Kyou stiffened at the name of the intruder.

"Can I see Kyou?" Haru's voice drifted back to the cat in question. It sounded normal, he supposed… maybe a little tired.

Kazuma glanced back at Kyou, his eyes telling the boy that this was up to him entirely.

Normally, Kyou would have vehemently said 'No freaking way, not on your life or mine,' but something about the way Shishou was leaving the decision up to him told him that he was being trusted to make the Right Choice – which was always the harder one to make, wasn't it? He deflated, and gave the slight nod necessary for Shishou to usher in the other youth.

Kazuma couldn't help smiling at Kyou's show of discipline, or maybe he could even venture to call it maturity. He turned back to Haru and stepped out of the way. "Yes, come in."

------

**More Author's Notes, sorry:** I hope this is okay. I really (REALLY) wanted to go into Kyou and Haru interacting again finally, but this chapter would have been endless and impossible for me to handle.

Just a few things. First, don't get me wrong and think I'm making Tohru a sort of 'villain'. What she's saying about herself is what _she_ feels about herself, not what_ I_ feel about her. Personally, I love Tohru. She's the one who thinks she has the problems. Second, if you read this and think my writing style has changed since my last update, you are wrong. Considering how little writing and subsequent developing I've had time to do, this much should be obvious. Third, I hope you don't mind the ill-placed humour sprinkled around in here. Sorry.

I can't make promises at to when the next update will be, except that I'm not gonna take another ten months to post it. Next chapter, our boys finally see each other again! Let's hope no one else ends up in traction.


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